Child marriages still prevalent in several MP districts

The Pioneer, Bhopal, Monday April 26, 2010 : As many as 57.5 per cent of girls in Barwani get married before attaining the age of 18 years. Not only Barwani, but other districts like Sehore, Neemach, Chhatarpur, Mandsaur, Rajgarh, Shajapur, Sheopur, Shivpuri are also facing a similar problem with more than 40 per cent of girls getting married there before 18 years.

These are the figures provided by the district-level household survey done by International Institute of Population Studies on behalf of Government of India. Madhya Pradesh is one of the States, which has the high incidence of child marriages, many of which happen during Akshay Tritiya, which is an auspicious occasion for marriages according to the Hindu religion.

This year, Akshay Tritiya is falling on May 16. Like every year, the State Government is busy preparing an action plan to prevent child marriages around that day. The Government of India had adopted the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act in 2006 but conviction rate under this Act is very low. As per the National Crime Bureau records last year, 11 people were convicted and two cases were registered in Madhya Pradesh.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says it is a violation of child rights. Tania Goldner, Chief of UNICEF office for Madhya Pradesh while speaking to The Pioneer said child marriages had adverse effects for the child bride and bridegroom and for the society as a whole. For both girls and boys, marriage has profound physical, intellectual, psychological and emotional impacts, cutting off educational opportunity and chances of personal growth.

She claimed that the consequences for girls were especially dire, as they are usually compelled into early childbearing, associated health risks and social isolation. Child brides frequently drop out of school and are exposed to higher risk of domestic violence and abuse, increased economic dependence, denial of decision-making power, inequality at home, which further perpetuates discrimination and low status of girls/women.

In India nearly half of all young women marry before the age of 18 (47 per cent as per National family Health Survey) and the situation is even more acute in rural areas

Right to education in Madhya Pradesh from April 1

Sanjay Sharma, IANS : Bhopal: The Right to Education (RTE) Act will be implemented in Madhya Pradesh from April 1, state Minister of School Education Archana Chitnis said here on Sunday.

Addressing a state level workshop on the RTE Act, the minister said the state government will be implementing from April 1, 2010, the act which envisages free and compulsory education to all its children till Class 8.

"To achieve compulsory education we will have to make school education interesting, which is a challenge and for the same we need to have tripartite responsibility of the state, teacher and parents," she said.

The workshop was held at RCVP Noronha Academy of Administration in Bhopal under the joint aegis of the state's education department and Unicef in order to familiarise the education and other departments with the act and seek suggestions from various stakeholders on the draft rules prepared by the state education department.

Speaking on the occasion, Tania Goldner, chief of Unicef office for Madhya Pradesh, said this act is a vehicle for change to accelerate progress in the education sector. Principal Secretary of Education department Snehlata Srivatsva said this is a unique act as it makes education a constitutional right. IANS

Workshop against female foeticide

Gwalior, April 18 (IBNS) A one-day workshop for raising concern against female foeticide was held at Gwalior on Friday (April 16).

The theme being 'Say no' to female foeticide, was organised by Department of Women and Child Development, Gwalior.  Welcoming the participants and speaking at the workshop Suresh Tomar Joint Director Women and Child Development department said that they are undertaking a special campaign to involve communities, parents, youth groups and schools children in 50 villages of Bhind and Morena each.

As a part of campaign department will be supporting film shows, workshops with various target groups in Gwalior, Bhind and Morena district to help build an environment against female foeticide.

Anil Gulati, Communication Specialist, UNICEF office for Madhya Pradesh said that media can play an important role by bringing the issue to forefront of its discourse.

He added that as per Census 2001 data nine districts of the State of Madhya Pradesh have child sex ratio less then 900 girls / 1000 boys which include Sheopur, Morena, Datia, Bhind, Gwalior, Shivpuri, Guna, Tikamgarh and Chhattarpur.   "It is the need of that day efforts are scaled up to stop this violation of child rights." He praised the efforts of the Department of Women and Child in initiating this campaign.

International team to visit Dhar for water and sanitation interventions

Team of 12 international officers from various countries i.e. Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia and Eritrea is in the State of Madhya Pradesh as a part of International learning exchange programme of UNICEF and Department of Drinking Water Supply, Government of India.  This is 4th year of ILE in India. The team will be visiting Dhar on April 15- 16, 2010 and see the work being done in tribal areas on water and sanitation sector in the district. The officers are working with UNICEF in various countries and with respective National Governments.
 

They will be visiting Tirla, Nalcha and Dharampuri block of Dhar district to see community based interventions in water and sanitation, flouride mitigation initiatives and school sanitation. During their visit to the district they plan to visit Nirmal Gram villages, tribal hostels, schools, meet and interact with panchayat representatives and communities.
 

This is part of International Learning Exchange programme (ILE) which is a collaborative effort of UNICEF and the Department of Drinking Water Supply, Government of India. The programme provides a platform to professionals from other developing countries for learning and knowledge-sharing from recent successes in, and challenges to India’s water and sanitation sector. 59 participants from 18 countries, namely, Afghanistan, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Cambodia, Niger, Rawanda, Ghana, Djibouti, Angola, Bangladesh, Uganda, Indonesia, Zambia, Bhutan, Somalia and Eritrea are visiting India.

Madhya Pradesh village girl inspires others to take up studies

PTI : The Government Girls’ Middle School at Sherpur village in Madhya Pradesh is now being widely recognised as “Lalita Ka School.” 

Lalita is no politician but a gritty 15-year-old, whose firm determination to study has motivated other girls to follow suit at the same very school from where she studied from Class VI to VIII. Lalita, who has moved to another school for her further studies now, was the lone student in all the grades for the last three years, but this did not discourage her from continuing her studies. 

The school, located about 50 km from here, did not deter Lalita to travel all along to attend classes in Standard VI, VII and VIII, where three male teachers helped her out in all the subjects. 

The teenager cleared her Class VIII exams with first class marks, inspiring other girls in her area to take up studies in that school. Her father Madanlal Girwal, a government employee, was initially a little bit worried as she was alone in the classes but then supported his daughter seeing her zeal for education.Her parents have now decided to let Lalita continue her studies in another school, where she is not alone. 

Middle School Head Master Ashok Jaat said, “There were better schools around. Hence attendance of girls at our institute was thin. But now things have changed after Lalita scored first class marks. Now nearly 15 girls have taken admission in our school.” The population of Sherpur is 700, Mr. Jaat said.

For quality mid-day meals, MP teachers to taste food

Milind Ghatwai, Indian Express :  


This was in Indian Express today and is one more of Milind's 'different story' on issue of education in MP. 

 

In a novel attempt to improve the quality of mid-day meals served in schools, authorities in Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh have made it compulsory for teachers to taste the food before serving it to students.Though the ambitious government programme of serving meals in schools has helped enroll more students and increase attendance, the quality of food has often been a concern due to poor implementation on ground. 

“There were lots of complaints of unpalatable food being served or children taking ill after the mid-day meals,” in-charge of MDM in Sagar Abhinit Sharma told The Sunday Express on what prompted the authorities to involve teachers in the drive to improve quality of food served in more than 3,000 primary and middle schools.

Incidentally, the practice is prevalent in jails where it’s incumbent on the superintendents or jailers to eat a few morsels of food served to prisoners. The Sagar administration has sent a circular to Chief Executive Officers of Janpad Panchayats and Block Resource Coordinators asking them to ensure that students are served food only after teachers have checked it.The food will be served to students only if teachers find it palatable and have been warned of action for complaints received later.

In rural areas, self-help-groups cook and transport the mid-day meals to schools and get a little more than Rs 2 per student. In addition, the groups are given 150 and 100 grams of grains per secondary and primary student, respectively. “To save money, many groups compromise on quality and show disregard for cleanliness,” an official said.

Need to focus on water quality

Central Chronicle, Bhopal, March 21:  A two day programme for UNI stringers and students of journalism was hosted by Makhanlal Chaturvedi University of Journalism and UNI at Bhopal. Speaking at the inaugural B K Kuthiala Vice Chancellor of University of Journalism said that content is the key and plays an important part in the news. He added that media can play a positive role in bringing in social change. A K Bhandari Chief Editor and Chief General Manager UNI said that UNI news agency plans to become a global player and has already initiated its presence in UNI TV and web portal. He said that with its wide presence UNI can help in bring in rich content for its subscribers.

Speaking at the occasion said that Anil Gulati Communication Officer with UNICEF said that media can play a role in bringing developmental issues particularly which impact children to forefront of public discourse and also create awareness on the solutions. He said that taking advantage of World Water Day which is being marked on March 22, 2010 media can bring discussion on the issues of water quality. He added that theme for this year is ‘clean water and health world’, which is very relevant for our times.

Aditi Prasad input incharge of UNI said this workshop will help increase knowledge of our stringers and students of journalism and will help us in our mission to reach out to people. Later speaking in the evening session Nagendra Prasad Singh, Water and Environmental Sanitation officer with UNICEF office for Madhya Pradesh said that each day about 690 children under five years die due to diarrheal disease many of these deaths are water borne and can be prevented. Point of use water treatment alone can reduce diarrheal morbidity by 39 %  Pushpinder Pal Singh Head of Department of Journalism of MakhanLal Chaturvedi University of Journalism conducted the programme. Participants were trained by N B Nayar, Prosenjit Dey, Vikram Kapoor, Shailendra Mahajan and Rachna Johri

School kids show the way in water conservation

Arun Anand, IANS : Vikas Pawar, a student of Class X, was so impressed by the Wise Water Management efforts being implemented in his Madhya Pradesh school by Unicef that he made it part of a science project.

He built a cardboard and plaster model showing how water could be conserved and recycled effectively to avoid a shortage. His Government Scheduled Caste Residential School is in Katara Hills near Bhopal, capital of the state which sees acute water shortage in summer.

'There are two ways by which water is being conserved in my school hostel. One is by collecting rain water during the monsoons in a Ferro Cement tank with a 50,000 litre capacity,' he explained. 'Collected rain water can be used for drinking and cooking purposes during the summer months when there is a shortage of water. 'The other method is by recycling grey water for flushing toilets,' Pawar said.

'Grey water' is that which has been used once for bathing and washing clothes. On an average, a student in the school hostel uses 30 litre of water per day in the bathroom. This water could be reused for toilet flushing and kitchen gardening. The school has 209 residential students.

'Used water from bathrooms is passed through a sponge filter,' said Nagmati Malviya, a Class XII student, pointing to a large pipe emerging from the outer wall of the bathrooms.

'Materials like plastic sachets of shampoo, soap wrappers get filtered as the water passes through this filter. The water is guided into a reservoir which is divided into five sedimentation tanks.' Suspended particles are settled in the first tank before the water is passed on to the adjoining segment and subsequently gets filtered while passing through the various chambers.

The second, third and fourth tanks have boulders of different sizes. As water passes in an up-flow, down-flow current through the filters, it leaves behind all perceptible impurities. Filtered water then flows down a series of 'aeration steps' that resemble a flight of stairs.

'The purpose of running the water in the open is to bring it in contact with oxygen from the atmosphere to reduce the odour of filtered greywater if any,' Nagmati said, giving a demonstration.

'The fifth tank collects the filtered water which is pumped by a motor to the tank placed on the roof of the hostel from where it goes to the cistern in the toilets and the remaining water is used for kitchen gardening.'

To combat the shortage of drinking water during summer, the school collects rain water from July to September every year. 'The school being located on a hill, there is acute water shortage during summers. The soil is rocky and the water level is far below,' said Mamta Ahirwar, scout training teacher. 'During the monsoons, all the water would flow down the hill slope and was wasted.'
 

But for the last one year, this school collects rain water, stores it in a reservoir with 50,000 litre capacity. The water is filtered, treated and then used for drinking and cooking.

The Wise Water Management (WWM) concept was developed by UNICEF, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute and Public Health Engineering Department, government of Madhya Pradesh. It was demonstrated in eight tribal residential schools of Dhar and Jhabua districts of Madhya Pradesh.

The WWM scheme was also demonstrated in two scheduled caste residential schools in Bhopal. The department of Tribal Welfare in Madhya Pradesh is now replicating this model in 400 tribal residential schools across the state. 'This will improve the quality of life for children and also have a positive effect on the environment. This is just a beginning. I hope this model will be replicated across the state for the benefit of all children and families of Madhya Pradesh,' says Tania Goldner, chief of UNICEF field office for Madhya Pradesh.'