The world is home
to 1.2 billion individuals aged 10-19 years generally known as the phase of
‘Adolescence’.Adolescence is a phase during which major
physical and psychological changes take place in children, along with changes
in their social perceptions and expectations. Adolescence is also the
stage when young people extend their relationships beyond parents and family
and are intensely influenced by their peers and the outside world. They are
also the years of experimentation and risk taking, of giving in to negative
peer pressure, of taking uninformed decisions on crucial issues, The vast majority
of adolescents live in developing countries and India has the largest
national population of adolescents. Studies show that millions of adolescents
today do not enjoy access to quality education, basic sexual and reproductive
health care, support for mental health issues and disability, protection from
violence, abuse and exploitation, and forums for active participation.
Gender-gap in the World of Adolescents
Women constitute nearly half of the population of the
country, but gender disparities in socio-cultural spheres have adversely
affected a balanced equitable development. These disparities get reflected in
important social development indicators such as health, nutrition, literacy,
educational attainments, skill levels, occupational status etc. The same is
also reflected in the situation of Adolescent girl.
The Adolescent girls in the 10–19 years constitute almost 47
per cent of the total population of Adolescents in the country. But their
development is fraught with varied problems. Almost 50% of women marry before the legal age of 18 verses
10% of young men. Overall, one in six women in age group of 15-19 have begun
childbearing. Early childbearing is most common in rural areas and among women
with no education. Around 41% of all maternal deaths
take place among those aged 15-24. 56% adolescent girls are anemic (verses
30% adolescent boys). Anemic adolescent mothers are at a higher risk of
miscarriages, maternal mortality and still-births and low-weight babies. The
drop-out rates among the girls are quite high. 21% adolescent girls and 8%
adolescent boys have no education. Dropout rates among girls are high
largely due to distance from schools, male teachers, sanitation facilities at
school, early marriage and early assumption of domestic responsibilities etc.
While the world expands for boys giving them greater freedom of
choice and opportunities, it contracts for girls and, more so when they are
from groups, sections having biases and practicing discrimination against
girls. The Adolescent Girls (AGs) are shy and find it hard to come out openly
and share their problems and issues with parents, teachers, doctors, etc. As a
result, they either grow without resolution of the issues or get misguided, being
driven by their own perceptions.
Adolescent Girls
are a core resource for national growth. Investment in their health and
development is investment in the greater well-being of the country. Considering
that several of these girls are out of school, get married early, face
discrimination in accessing health, education and other services, work in
vulnerable situation, and are influenced by peer pressure, they need special
attention. The public health challenges for adolescents, which include
pregnancy, risk of maternal and infant mortality, sexually transmitted
diseases, reproductive tract infections, rapidly rising incidence of HIV, etc.,
require influencing the health-seeking behavior of AGs. They need to be looked
at in terms of their needs both as a group as well as individuals as they are
the productive members of the society in future. Recognizing the unmet needs of
AGs, Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls – Sabla has
been launched as a comprehensive intervention for Adolescent girls
in the age-group of 11-18, with a focus on out of school girls. To
begin with, the Scheme is being implemented in 200 districts of the country on
a pilot basis.
Key Areas of Sabla Scheme
Using the ICDS platform, this
scheme is reaching out to nearly 1crore adolescent girls between 11 – 18 years of age in
200 districts across the country with an integrated package of services. Sabla aims at all-round development of adolescent
girls of 11-18 years (with a focus on all out-of-school AGs) by making them ‘self reliant’. At the AnganwadiCenter,
supplementary nutrition providing 600 Kcal and
18-20 g of protein and micronutrients is provided every day at the anganwadi centers either as hot cooked meal or as take home
rations to out of school adolescent girls in 11-14 years and all
girls between 14-18 years for 300 days in a
year.
In addition, out of school adolescent girls are being provided non- nutrition
services which include life skills education, supervised weekly IFA (100 mg of
elemental iron and 0.5 mg of folic acid) supplementation and nutrition
counselling, sexual and reproductive health education and counseling, skills in
leadership, problem solving, decision making and accessing public services. In
addition, older adolescent girls (16 - 18 year olds) are being given vocational
training to make them self reliant. The Scheme also emphasizes
convergence of services under various programmes such as Health, Education,
Youth affairs and Sports, and Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) to achieve the
programme objectives.
With the support of community-based frontline workers (anganwadi
workers) and civil society groups, adolescent girls have been organized in
groups called Kishori Samoohs. Each Samooh is led by a peer leader
(Kishori Sakhi) and meet at least 5-6 hours a week to receive programme
services and function as a peer support group. Every girl enrolled in Sabla are
given a Kishori Card, an entitlement tool to monitor girls’ access to and
uptake of the services under Sabla. The non-nutrition services under the Sabla programme
interventions also reach out to the non-school going adolescent girls through
adolescent groups i.e., Kishori Samoohs meetings. Each adolescent group
comprises of 15 – 25 adolescent girls led by peer leaders i.e., Kishori Sakhi
and their two associates i.e., Sahelis. The Sakhis and Sahelis are imparted training and serve as a peer
monitor/educator for adolescent girls. They serve the group for one year
and each girl will have a term of four months as a Sakhi on
rotational basis. The AGs also participate in day to day activities of AWC
like Pre School, Education, growth monitoring and SNP and facilitate
the AWW in other activities. They also accompany the AWW for home
visits (2-3 girls at a time) which serves as a training ground for future.
State-Specific Initiatives
of Sabla
In many states like
Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, NGOs are being utilised for all awareness generation
activities and training of the Sakhis and Sahelis. Once a week, interactions of
the school going and the non-school going adolescents is also organised so that
interactions of the school and non school going adolescents are enhanced and
the latter is motivated to join school. Once in three months on a fixed day
i.e., on Kishori Diwas, general health checkups including measurement of height
and weight and referral services are organised for all the adolescent girls by
the Anganwadi worker with help from the health functionaries and referrals to
specialised health care facilities for health problems that need special
attention. Each adolescent girl is provided a Kishori Card which is a tool to
monitor the services the adolescent girl utilises under the Sabla scheme.
With the basic
framework of the scheme, State governments have undertaken special initiatives
to reach out for the well being of adolescent girls. In Bihar, the state
government has clubbed the vocational training of the adolescent girls 16 – 18
years and is reaching out to them through the Hunar scheme of the Education
department, a special state level initiative to empower the minorities,
schedule castes and scheduled tribes. Under this arrangement efforts are made
to provide commercially viable training and develop employable skills among youth who have atleast passed the 8th class.
In states like Orissa, the
state government has prioritized training the girls in textile craft and has
tied up the vocational training with the existing cottage industries and market
linked the trainings so that the older girls can be economically independent.
Similar efforts are also being undertaken by the state governments of Andhra
Pradesh and Karnataka.
In Gujarat, the state
government has rolled out the Mamta-Taruni programme to ensure adequate healthcare and timely counseling to adolescent
girls. The programme is aimed at providing healthcare to girls who are out of
school, because there already exists a health programme especially for school
students. Through this programme the young girls are also given physical and
psychological counseling for the changes taking place in the body during
adolescence.Every six months, the nutritional status and hemoglobin levels of
the girl are achieved and they are given treatment for anemia if needed. To
ensure maximum participation in the programme, the state government has
introduced a small monetary provision. The idea is to ensure that maximum
number of girls, especially in rural areas, scheduled castes and scheduled
tribes participate in the programme. The state also gives the 'peer educator'
i.e. Sakhis a small token amount of Rs 25 for every meeting so that they bring
as many girls to the kishori samooh meeting as possible, and make them aware.
At the same time, the Anganwadi worker is also given an incentive of Rs. 50 for
calling the meeting and counseling the girls.
In Jharkhand, the state
government has taken a special initiative to establish effective linkages for
vocational training in order to build the technical and professional skills of
adolescent girls. Linkages for the vocational training and placements have been
established with the NSDC (National Skill Development Corporation) and 30 local
non-government partners. The adolescent girls groups
are also being linked to the existing self-help groups so that interactions
with these groups can help in their economic self-reliance. The state
government in collaboration with the Department of Education is in the process
of designing a special curriculum to mainstream the out of school adolescent
girls into the school system through specially designed educational courses
that cater to their literary needs. The state government is undertaking steps
to link every adolescent girl under 18 with the formal school setup;
for which linkages with National Programme of Education of Girls (NPEGEL) and
KGBV (Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya) scheme have been established. Child trafficking especially that of tribal girls is a major problem
faced by the state. In order to address this problem, the state government of
Jharkhand, through the life skills education, appropriate vocational training
and enhancing literacy levels in the state, hopes that the incidence of child
trafficking is reduced. In addition, under the Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR), funds are being utilized for creating small library and
learning centre in every AWC. The state has also started a statewide social
mobilization Campaign for Health and Nutrition for adolescent girls, which
was inaugurated by Health minister of the state
in a function where all interventions under Sabla were
initiated.
Sabla endeavors to have AGs with enhanced
self esteem, improved nutrition and health status with enhanced skills and the
capacity to make informed choices. Through various schemes including, Sabla, the
government is investing in the health, nutrition and development needs of
adolescent girls to advance their rights to education, health and protection
which will help to them to build a future of gender equality and justice. All
this, will in turn help in building of a self-reliant and confident
women citizenry.
