International day for elimination of violence against women

The 25^th November marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women – the United Nations annual effort to raise awareness about the women around the world who fall victim to gender base violence. It is the beginning of 16 day period of activism to address violation of women’s rights culminating with the Human Rights Day on December 10^th. The United Nations defines violence against women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life”,

On the occasion of this 16 day period, Sakhya organized various awareness programme in Vasai Taluka including display of posters, banners, distribution of leaflets, talks, sessions, street plays and tempo rally. On 25^th November Sakhya Social Workers and volunteers displayed 100 banners and posters at main places in Vasai, Virar and Nalasopara  which included government hospital in Vasai, Bangli Naka, Vartak college, four bus depos, Vasai,Virar, Nalasopara and Naigaon railway station, local markets, etc. The Social worker gave talk in R P Vagh Schoo,l Vasai and New English School Junior college, Vasai on “Effects of domestic violence on youth and Gender sensitization”  sensitizing  400 on domestic violence issue. On 4^th Dec tempo rally was organized in order to raise public awareness of violence against women . The Social  Worker and Volunteers  decorated the tempo  beautifully with posters and banners spreading message of women’s empowerment. Tempo went to all main places in Vasai Taluka and stopped each place for 10 minutes. The Social Workers raised slogans of women’s empowerment, had dialogues with people who approached, distributed the leaflets. Total 6000 leaflets were distributed. VAW campaign increased the visibility of Sakhya among masses as  a number of people approached to have interaction with the Social Workers on violence issues. After VAW campaign 10 people personally approached  Sakhya to get the guidance , 12 cases  had telephonic counseling, two NGOs in Vasai approached  to know sakhya’s activities, three journalist  approached after watching banners.  At  Sakhya extension centre Thane also,  various activities were organized to  raise awareness of violence against women to support the day as International observance.On 26^th November OPD campaign was organized in Thane civil hospital. Posters and banner of Sakhya were put up in the OPD by the students of Nirmala Niketan .52 brochures were distributed and a small talk on domestic violence was given by the social workers.On 27^th November senior citizen campaign was organozed by the social workers in Thane civil hospital. 88 brochures were distributed and a small talk was given on domestic violence. Handbills describing the importance of domestic violence day were also distributed.

On 1^st December the Social workers  and the students of Nirmala Niketan went to different churches and corporate sectors for fund raising event.On 3^rd December campaign was organized by the social worker in the ANC ward at Thane civil hospital. 57 brochures were distributed and a small talk was given by the social worker on domestic violence week. On 4^th December fund raising was carried out by the students of Nirmala Niketan and later campaigning was organized by the social worker and the students at Thane bus depot.

              

                 

                    

             

                                                 

Sakhya Women’s Guidance Cell is organizing Street Play Competition during its annual day celebration on 22^nd February 2014. We invite interested participants for registration. For registration please contact Ms. Chatush Singh on 7208149820 and Mrs. Shalini Jadhav on 9221078237

     Workshop on Women and Violence

   On 24^th November 2013 at 9:00 am, a workshop was conducted with the Parishioners of St. John the Baptist Church on women and violence. The workshop was organized by Sakhya Women’s Guidance Cell .The resource person was Miss. Chatush Singh from Sakhya. Parish Priest Ryan Alex introduced the resource person to the parishioners giving them a brief view about her work. The resource person started the workshop by showing a PowerPoint presentation and asked the people what they think about violence and what types of violence on women exist. They said physical violence, economical violence, emotional violence, sexual violence and so on. The resource person discussed each type of domestic violence and explained what the circumstances are and what can be done to prevent such nuisance in our society. Later the resource person asked the people to divide themselves in the group of four and asked them to pen down on a paper what they think about domestic violence and to come up with an action plan to stop domestic violence in our society. The discussion went on for a few minutes in all groups and then a group leader from each group gave a presentation of the action plan. The action plan that they came up with had the following points:

• ·        Social Awareness
• ·        Involve family members in the matter
• ·        Encourage counseling
• ·        Approach NGO
• ·        Family counseling
• ·        Take help from school
• ·        Equality between girl and boy child
• ·        Prevent Misuse of domestic violence act

Workshop on Adoption and Safe Surrender

   On 18^th November 2013 at 2:15 pm, workshop was conducted with the nursing staff in Thane Civil Hospital‘s nursing college meeting hall on adoption and safe surrender. The workshop was organized by Sakhya Women’s Guidance cell and the resource person was Savita Nagpurkar from Indian Association for Promotion of Adoption and Child Welfare (IAPA).The Social worker Kamini introduced the resource person to the nursing staff by giving a brief view about her work .The resource person started the workshop by showing two half minute videos and asked the nursing staff to distinguish between the two. In the first video the girl was sad because her family had thrown her child away as she was an unwed mother .In the second video other girl was happy because the unwed had given her child for adoption and had secured the child’s life. With the example of the video Mrs. Savita tried to explain the plight of an unwed mother .How some of the unwed mothers are forced to put their child away by their families or are killed after birth or in some cases given illegally to couples who cannot have their own child. She shared how some doctors in some hospitals illegally give unwed mothers child to a couple who cannot have their own. Back in time couples adopted children but later when the child became sick and struck by some danger disease or became physically disabled or when the couple have their own child later they used to give back the adopted child to the ashram where they adopted the child from causing a trauma in the minds of those children. Because of all these reasons the adoption process came into picture. The resource person further explained the nursing staff if they come across such cases where an unwed mother does not know what to do with the child they can help them by referring them to the IAPA which will help them through the process and help the child to be with a family through adoption. In this way unwed mothers don’t have to abandon the child in some dustbin or near litter areas. Safe surrender project was started by the IAPA to ensure that a child gets to live in a family through adoption. The adoption process requires proper documents of the family who wish to adopt pan card, address proof, salary slip. The person who adopts must have adequate income and has to have an insurance policy removed in the name of the child adopted to ensure the future of the child so that he/she is not abandoned by the adopted family. Later the resource person asked nursing staff to share their views on the topic. One nurse shared that a relative in her family had adopted a child undergoing all the legal process and now the child is as their own .Some nurses took the contact number of the resource person and interacted with her sharing some cases. The workshop came to an end at 4:00 with a song sung by the social worker and a vote of thanks to the resource person and the nursing staff.

International Week for Elimination of Violence against Women

    International week for the Elimination of Violence against Women
















Sakhya Women’s Guidance Cell like each year this year too is going to observe International week for the Elimination of Violence against Women from 25^th November 2013 to 10^th December 2013. The objective of celebration of this week is to raise public awareness of violence against women and to educate them about consequence of violence against women.

Campaigns will be organized from Virar to Naigaon at market places, schools, colleges, Women Development Cells through distribution of brochures, newsletters,display of banners, individual talks and tempo rally.

The campaign will draw attention to the need for continuing action to eliminate violence against women and also encourage the local people to say no to violence.

                                              Celebrating sports day

On 19^th Oct 2013 Sakhya in collaboration with UPS global volunteers organized sports at Shivshankar pada for the community women, total 55 women from Shivshankar pada, Kalam & Bandar pada Wagoli participated in the event. Sakhya staff and students divided women in five groups [Red, Yellow, green, orange and violet] eleven women in each group.  

Program started with welcome of the participants, UPS Staff and SNDT students by Mrs. Shalini. The objective of program was explained to the participants.

 “Chiri miri- Chiri miri” an energizing song conducted by Ms. Rushila brought enthusiasm among women to participate in the sports event.

Following games were conducted with women:

·         Balloon relay

·         Passing the water

·         Putting chilly in the bottle

·         Beauty contest with news papers, bindis and straws.

·         Bombing the city

Last game ‘Queen of Sheeba’ was conducted by UPS staff. 

At the end of the programme prizes and snacks were distributed to women trough UPS staff. All of them received prizes.

Women were very happy. They enjoyed the sports event. All of them participated in all the games.  In spite of their busy schedule they made time to come together.  While playing group games one could see the bonding that was taking place among the group. Each participant wanted to play and win for their group; they were cheering up, supporting & encouraging each other.