| May 10, 2018
Tapping Inward Significance and Confidence
Greetings from Reaching Hand!
Reaching Hands Girls Glory, WASH interventions have yielded several success storiesThis has been possible by overcoming the challenges through sheer hard work and dedication of the team members.
The enthusiastic proactive involvement of the teachers and students of these schools deserve a special mention. In most of the schools, the pre-intervention scenario was not very different.
Hear the eighth grader Bhavana, say what the condition in her school in Soorahunase was before the intervention of Reaching Hand.
Bhavana Says,“My school friends especially the girls lacked proper sanitation due to lack of infrastructure and maintenance in the school. Cases when there were some facilities, absence of awareness clogged in terms of personal hygiene”.
Special requirement of the adolescent girl students was an issue that did not receive due attention. The prevailing social taboos makes it a subject of embarrassment and hesitation among adolescent girl students to vent even before the female teachers.
Lack of sanitation and menstrual management during school hours led to absenteeism among adolescent girls in that school hence affecting regular attendance and studies.
Timely intervention of Reaching Hand with the support of corporate Akamai Technologies constructed 6 toilet blocks for girls in our school on March 19, 2018.
They also conducted Awareness classes on health and hygiene and menstrual management. This has enlighted girls on how to use sanitary pad, maintain cleanliness during periods and they spread caution and knowledge for the girls who are yet to hit puberty.
Pre and post tests were conducted by Reaching Hand to analyse the knowledge we students have attained through the workshops.
Bhavana adds, “I really thank Reaching Hand from the bottom of my heart for providing basic facilities we lacked in our school”.
Through the workshops students are now aware that menstruation is a natural process and now they comfortable to discuss any issue pertaining periods with their teachers and parents.
SoorahunaseSchool had only 71 % attendance prior to construction of Toilets. After Reaching Hands intervention, in 3 months we saw a rise in attendance to 79%. Now we are making all efforts to raise it to 90% through awareness and workshop sessions for the students, teachers and parents.
A quarter gone by: With the end of another Financial years starts another year filled with hope and anxiety to bring about phenomenal change in the life of the young adolescent girls. It is the time of the year we look back and introspect the year gone by. We have made good memories last year and we work towards even better approaches this year.
Reaching Hand in collaboration with different corporate inaugurated new toilets and hand-wash units under "Girls Glory Program" in various Govt schools. The school Administration, village SDMC and Panchayat, local volunteers, parents and students actively participation in these programs. Local media coverage was taken. The toilets are all constructed with proper drainage and disposable arrangements.
These achievements have been possible through your sacrificial donations to the cause. With your support we have touched the lives of more than 8000 girls by constructing 51 new toilets , renovating 71 toilets , conducting 18 Awareness workshops and catering to 93 government schools across Bangalore in the last quarter.
- We were able to create our own standard syllabus for health and hygiene and puberty workshops.
- We could strategize maintenance of toilets.
- Through the intervention of corporate ,13 of our students got educational scholarships.
- The pass percentage have soared high compared to last year in all our partnered government schools.
In the following quarter Reaching Hand will complete the work of the assigned projects and start work in new Govt schools. We will be using innovative strategies to involve our students who will be back after Summer vacation.
We will be actively participating in TCS W 10K marathon to raise funds for “Girls Glory” program stressing the importance of education for girls.
We are thankful to each one of you for your continues support with which we were able to be scale up our program.
Feedback and suggestions are welcome, so that we can improve our programs.
New toilet block
In paper news