Despite education being a fundamental right in India, girls still lack of opportunities to educate themselves. This is why the primary focus of Women Development Welfare Society (W.D.W.S) is the education of girls.
The problem mainly occurs in rural areas, such as Telangana state and Andhra Pradesh. In India, 80% of the people in poverty live in rural areas where drop-out rates from school are very high. Children don’t have access to schools in close proximity and they lack of transportation options. The infrastructure of the existing schools is rather poor – 40% of school children don’t have access to safe drinking water and 10% of the schools are run in thatched huts. Moreover, the lack of trained teachers also decreases school attendance. Thus, a 100 million children are out of schools and 33% of children above age 7 are illiterate.
On top of that, girls are affected more than boys as they get taken out of school to help out with family responsibilities, such as taking care of younger siblings, fetching water, cooking or even working during harvest season. Additionally, when transportation is not available, parents are more likely to avoid sending girls to school in order to protect them.
This is why W.D.W.S. was established – to support fair education and to promote the relief of poverty in the Andhra Pradesh region. Their program consists of several activities.
They have an awareness camp to promote awareness of girl’s education rights, the importance of education, child protection rights and gender equality. They give assistance for higher education, promote the culture of higher education in rural areas, and monitor the drop-out rates of girls from schools in order to understand and improve the education system in the future. Lastly, they provide bicycles and uniforms for girls in order to boost the attendance in schools.
We want all children to have equal opportunities, therefore we are very happy to support this project, so many girls can continue their education, they can build a good society and most importantly: so they can inspire others!
