Stree Shakti: SAVE THE GIRL, SAVE THE WORLD: GIRL CHILD DAY , JAN 2013

Wednesday 10 April 2013

SAVE THE GIRL, SAVE THE WORLD: GIRL CHILD DAY , JAN 2013

Smt. Krishna Tirath, Minister for Women and Child Development and former President Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam awarded children who have won the national slogan writing competition on the National Girl Child Day, held on 24^th January 2013.

Smt. Tirath and the Chief Guest for the function, Dr. Abdul Kalam awarded the winners of the national slogan writing competition. The first prize winners were given prize of Rs. 50,000; the second and third prize winners were given Rs. 35,000 and Rs. 25,000 each. For the Hindi slogans, the first prize was awarded to Kum. K K Chandralekha of Bangalore and second prize went to Master Swapnil Jain from Jabalpur. The third prize of Rs. 25,000 each was given away to Master Praveen Jabar of Chattisgarh and Kum. Saumya Sharma of Jaipur. In the English category Kum. Kanupriya Sharma won the first prize and Kum. Debangee Roy of Kolkata won the second prize. The third prize was shared equally by Master Anmol Rathod of Jammu and Kum. Veerta Singh of Kurukshetra, Haryana. More than 4000 students in the age group of 14-18 participated in the slogan writing competition. This was organized by the National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW), under the Ministry of WCD.

Best slogan of the year was Save the Girl, Save the World.

Speaking at the occasion, the Smt. Krishna Tirath said that while children are the future of the nation, it is a cause of national concern that the child sex ratio has been showing a declining trend. The decline in the affluent sections of the society is worrisome, she pointed out. This trend does not portend a healthy future for the society and the country, she added. Declining child sex ratio and child marriages are not isolated events, the Minister said. They both point to and emerge from the low respect for women in the Indian society. Cultural preference for male child, combined with technological advances which have made availability of cheap ultrasound machines easy to procure have resulted in increasing female foeticide. The Ministers narrated instances from some villages from Rajasthan where the newly born girl children are killed immediately after birth, because of the cultural preference for the male child. She said that the Ministry of WCD is in the process of bringing out a National Plan of Action for abetting the falling child sex ratio through a comprehensive action plan with the support of all concerned Ministries, such as Health, Human Resource Development, Drinking water and Sanitation etc.

In order to empower women and protect the girl child, the Minister elaborated on the schemes and initiatives taken up by the Ministry of WCD such as SABLA and the ICDS which has resulted in better nutrition and education among the children and young and adolescent women. Smt. Tirath also elaborated on the newly formed Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 where stringent punishment has been provided for sexual assault on children.

In his key note address at the occasion, Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam said that girl child and women are social assets, and they need to be nurtured and protected for a healthy society. There are many laws in the country for women and children but they are not enough, Dr. Kalam said. They need to be implemented in letter and spirit. He said that reserving 33% of seats in the Parliament will lead to empowering women.

Dr. Kalam further said that a happy home with nurturing parents and guiding teachers shape and mould the future of the child. He said that when the child is empowered by the parents he/she develops into a responsible citizen of the country; and empowering women ensured the harmony within the society. Parents need to inculcate the habit of reading in the children right from a young age, Dr. Kalam stated. He also had the children present at the occasion take a vow that they will plant five trees and nurture them before they turn 17 years of age, pointing to the importance of a clean and green environment.

The Secretary, WCD, Sh. Prem Narain also pointed at the escalation in the drop-out rate of girl child in the country and expressed concern about the declining child sex ratio. He said these have reached a level where the whole country needs to be concerned, as this is a matter of survival of the society. He also mentioned that many girls drop out of school early due to lack of facilities such as drinking water, sanitation and toilets in many schools. Many times the schools are far away from the homes. The Ministry of WCD and HRD have taken a pledge, he said, to provide all schools with toilets in the 12th FYP. He also elaborated on various schemes of the Ministry of WCD which have empowered women and the girl child. He further added amendments are being proposed in the Dowry Act and the Immoral Trafficking Act.

Courtesy: http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=91812

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Rashmi Singh

Rashmi Singh is a public servant who has created a distinguished track record for her innovative works in human services, governance reforms and woman empowerment. She was the founder Director of Mission Convergence programme and Samajik Suvidha Sangam in Delhi and was instrumental in laying the foundations, structures and processes which define this unique programme. Her key endeavors through this Mission were to redefine social policy on the basis of new criteria for poverty identification in terms of vulnerability, aligning government policies and delivery mechanisms to reach out to these vulnerable, and building effective GO-NGO partnerships at the grassroots. She is currently working as the Executive Director in the National Mission for Empowerment of Women, Ministry of WCD, Government of India.

Rashmi has provided leadership to the innovative public private partnership program called ‘Stree Shakti’ for the women of low-income groups by steering this programme in Delhi in the years 2004-2007. Under this she institutionalized the Gender Resource Centres as one-stop information cum facilitation center for marginalized women and their families, providing an integrated and holistic empowerment framework benefitting women living in jhuggi-jhopries, slums, resettlement colonies who had little access to development programmes earlier.

Rashmi facilitated the development and adoption of a new criteria and process of defining and identifying the poor. This criteria uses proxy indicators of income based on spatial, social and occupational vulnerability. Widows, single deserted women, and female headed households (FHH) amongst others fall in this vulnerable section. Using this criteria, Ms Singh conducted a unique exercise of mobilizing more than 100 NGOs to undertake a survey of the poor and the marginalized sections of Delhi, living in slums unauthorized colonies, resettlement colonies, and those on the streets. This criteria and methodology of its implementation on ground has been widely recognized by other significant platforms such as ministry of rural development and planning commission.

Rashmi has contributed significantly towards developing systems for introducing transparency, accountability and rights based framework. Through Mission Convergence initiative, she could make significant headway in bringing various existing social security/ benefit schemes of the different departments under unified delivery systems, fostering mechanisms for vertical and horizontal integration in the government, and effective community outreach, especially for reaching out to the unreached i.e. the most marginalized and vulnerable groups.

She has also served as Director, Welfare in the New Delhi Municipal Council from 1999-2004.

Recognitions accorded:

· In 2006 led Stree Shakti to Silver Award at the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration & Management ( CAPAM) in 2006.

· Women of Excellence Award by the FICCI Ladies organization

· In 2010, 2nd ‘Adhi Abadi Award’ for women achievers by Invitca media

· In 2010, the Devi Ahilya Bai Holkar Award, Stree-Shakti award instituted by the Ministry of WCD, Govt of India was conferred upon her by the President of India in recognition of her services in the area of Women’s Empowerment.

· In 2010 won the Award of Excellence in Innovations in Government Services and Programmes and the overall Gold Medal across four awards categories at the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration & Management for Mission Convergence.

· Dr. Sadhna International Empowerment Award, 2011

· In 2011 was conferred the distinguished leadership award for internationals by the University of Minnesota in USA

Educational Qualification

· University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, Master of Public Affairs, 2007. Major in Management and Governance of Non-Profits.

· I.H.S, Erasmus University, Netherlands. Post graduate Diploma, July-Sept, 2004. Topic of Study: ‘Policies on Poverty Reduction and Local Economic Development’.

· University of Delhi, New Delhi, India. Post Graduation in History completed in 1989.

· Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi. Bachelor of Arts, 1987. Honors in History.

Others

· Invited to several national and international platforms to deliver talks and share her experience on governance reforms, GO-NGO platforms, inclusive development strategies etc. Significant are the Leadership Conference at Malyasia organized by Commonwealth Association, Conference on inclusive growth amongst IBSA countries at Brazil, International Women’s conference organized by Art of Living at Bali, besides her award winning presentations at Commonwealth Conference at Malta in 2010, and Sydney, Australia in 2006.

· Serves as patron of several Non govt organizations of repute such as the Delhi Chess Association, The All India Federation of Deaf and Dumb

· Rashmi comes from an illustrious family of freedom fighters, and social crusaders. She is the granddaughter of Sh Kamta Prasad Singh ‘ KAM’, freedom fighter and members of first legislative assembly in Bihar after independence, and daughter of famous literary personality and Hindi crusader, Sh Shankar Dayal Singh, who served as a distinguished member of parliament from Bihar both in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.