Here are our top four recommendations for how you can volunteer your time and effort to the cause of empowering young girls and women, in the communities around you:
Teach them young, teach them right
UNESCO reports almost a quarter of young women aged 15-24 today (116 million) in developing countries have never completed primary school. Young women make up 58% of those not completing primary school.
The role of education is extremely important and it goes a long way in empowering women. Education enables a girl to take up skill-based training and empower herself economically and socially. Educating a girl has far-reaching impacts. It is rightly said that when a woman is educated, an entire generation benefits from it.
Education, the right way to empowerment – Rallis India | Lote
Skill them for the jobs of tomorrow
Vocational skills help to survive in the real world, making vocational training as important as literacy for a woman.
Vocational Training that develops skills for earning – Rallis India | Lote
Some girls drop-out of school because their parents fail to understand how schooling will help them get a job and ease the family’s economic pressures. It gets easier to motivate parents to send their children to school when there is some skill-based training involved (stitching, electrician’s training, arts & crafts, trainer to be a trainer etc.) and most importantly entrepreneurship basics – jobs aren’t the long term future – self-starters are!
Volunteer at a Tata STRIVE center closest to you, or sponsor a candidate as part of their training programmes.
Self-Defence – Nature’s Eldest Law
Ensuring safety on streets, in workplaces and other social setting is an imperative for empowering women. A true embodiment of independence sets in when a girl can fend for herself and defend herself.
Throwback to the defence classes, where girls learned to pack a punch – Voltas Limited | Mumbai
If you are trained in self-defense or martial arts, you could teach young women a few ways to ensure they can escape from harm in unsafe scenarios. Discussions on safety precautions at road, home, school, public places and most importantly while using the internet. Self-help groups that allow individuals to share their stories can also serve to boost morale.
Civic Awareness, Health and Hygiene
A girl’s education should not be limited to just packing a few books and rote learning. In addition to providing the right platform to learn to be economically independent, a good education should also stimulate civic sense and social empowerment, where she can initiate a positive change.
Not whispering about Whisper anymore
Often ignored in the regular curriculum, it is imperative to familiarise adolescent girls with the status and problems related to women. These inputs can enhance their self-esteem and self-confidence and bust common myths. Engaging girls in discussion and hosting an orientation on health, hygiene, menstruation and related physiological and psychological issues will truly empower them.
Health and hygiene awareness for true empowerment – JUSCO | Jamshedpur
If empowering women is a cause you feel passionately about, visit Tata Engage today and volunteer your time with any of the women empowerment activities that are being hosted this TVW7.