The International Day of the Girl Child

It never becomes boring at Sambhali Trust. There are always new projects coming up and so was it on the International Day of the Girl Child, which was declared by the UN. Since this was a great occasion to become active, the Trust spontaneously took the opportunity to plan a demonstration. So, on Monday, one day before the rally should start, the volunteers introduced the topic in every center. Why should we celebrate the Day of the Girl Child? Which issues could this day be about and why is the irl child so important that even the UN decided to create a special day for it? Well, there are many answers to these questions, which are not possible to list up in this blog entry. Mostly, we talked about child marriages, violence against girls and the lack of education for girls in the society of India. In the end, every center drew some pictures or banners about the topic, writing or painting what ever fits to it. One banner was used for the demonstration in the end.

The women in the JEC creating the poster

 

 

Even the youngest girl participated

 

 

 

The next day, we fortunately got the permission of the Jodhpur police department to start the rally. Many women from the centers, the staff, the boardinghome girls and the volunteers met in front of the guest house. Some pictures were taken and even the TV-news were there to interview us. We had the honor to be visited by Mr. Poonam Ram ji Choudhary, Head of the District Council, Jodhpur and Mrs. Tracy Thomson of Trading Boundaries, UK.
Finally the demonstration started at about 8:30 am. Many posters were held up by the participants and during the whole way the crowd sang and shouted slogans, spreading the message about Girls Empowerment. It was kind of an exciting experience. The rally stopped near the clocktower where coloured powder was handed to everyone together with rose petals. Hundreds of people threw the colours up to the sky at the same time and almost everyone turned pink and red with a smile on their face. All in all it was a wonderful morning with a hopefully good impact on the passengers who saw us walking on the street.

 

The volunteers were walking in the front holding the banner

One of the several posters

"Who run the world - Girls!"

Noshin and Alfisha from the Boardinghome

Waiting in front of the guest house

Even the ground was pink afterwards

Sambhali: the past few weeks

Peace in every center

This month on 21st of September, we had a special workshop program in every center from the Sambhali Trust. This day was the International Peace Day, declared by the United Nations. Therefore, the volunteers talked about the meanings of piece with the women. Beginning with the common symbol of a white dove or a globe, which is held by human hands, the ideas became very creative. So, the single word piece doesn´t seem to only implement freedom, no war or harmony, in fact peace also meant to the women to lead a free and independent life, to have a chance of education and equality among every human being. On the other hand, some students found their peace in their daily life, for example by learning how to make the perfect chapati or to spend time with their friends and families.
Every center drew some posters for this event, which turned out very bright and various.

Some Boardinghome girls during their artwork...

...And then proudly presenting the wonderful picture

The JEC-Women presenting their work

A patchwork of the posters from every center

Special performance by the Sambhali Trust

The third prize went to the Jodhpur EC

According to Women's Welfare Day the Sambhali Trust collaborated with the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment (SJE) in Jodhpur to celebrate on 5th of October. Chief Guest of the program was Dr. Vishnu Charan Malik (H'ble District Collector, Jodhpur).









The show was opened by some girls from the Boarding home, singing two songs for the audience. Despite the nervousness of the students, the show was very impressive, since every center had prepared an own performance.

Several women of each center took part in a dancing competition with amazing traditional dances. Moreover, the students had the possibility to participate in a drawing or henna competition. In the end, those who had succeeded in having the best performance or the best drawing, got an award. Sambhali´s supporters were felicitated and some of them had prepared speeches for the audience.

The second prize went to the Brothers for Sisters EC

But the funniest part of the show must have been the European volunteers singing "We shall overcome" in Hindi. empowerment and afterwards everybody was offered some refreshments outside of the auditorium. All in all, the program was a great success and the audience enjoyed it.

And the Abhivyakti-EC received the first prize

The volunteers singing Honge kamyaab