This Project is an attempt to reach out to men and women in India, specially those belonging to the socially and econmically weaker sections of society, to join in a concerted national effort to get rid of the highly damaging biases that still prevail in the country against the girl child. The biases get transmitted across generations adversely  affecting, both, boys and girls, preventing their healthy and whole development.

  While many programmes with  the same objective, though with different approaches, are in operation across the country, this attempt breaks new ground in seeking to bring the power and reach of Information Technology into the pursuit of this objective.  And in the IT-related national solution that is proposed, the attempt is further unique in its use of not merely text, but also of image and voice in every Indian language that will carry the message to every woman in every part of the country. The IT related solution is one that has been consciously designed by the IIT Chennai, and strikingly demonstrated by Vidya Vrikshah, a Chennai-based NGO,  to serve these very socio-economic purposes. Those interested in further details are invited to visit their respective websites at 

http://acharya.iitm.ac.in/    and     http://www.vidyavrikshah.org/

(The former site also carries a mirror of the latter)

  Click on the ear icon at the start of this presentation and this narrative will be read out for the benefit of those who cannot see or read and write. And as the narrative proceeds you will see the message strikingly reinforced by photographs, drawings and animations Luckily we have a wonderful collection of such materials already collected by several organisations and where we have used them, we have duly acknowledged our debt to the organisations concerned. These organisations  will readily see how enormously our use of IT and of the medium of the local language has  extended the reach of what was confined to the covers of their printed materials with a limited reach.

Why should this sweet girl be denied the joys of childhood  and a right to a life of healthy growth and fulfilment ?

This presentation is addressed equally to women and men, as parents. But it is important that all men, be they fathers, brothers and sons,  should be aware of and sensitive to the unique problems of women, be they mothers, wives, sisters and daughters. It is important because men often contribute to these problems and should have a responsibility to contribute to their solution. These problems remain the same, whatever language they speak, or what religion they practice, 

First, mothers,  remember that you were once a girl child and perhaps went through all the experiences portrayed above. Should you then subject your little girl child to the same experiences ?

Second, some families think sons are an asset and daughters are a liability. Even well-to-do women are known to get pressured into terminating a pregnancy when tests indicate that the foetus is a girl. In poor families people go to the extent of killing a girl child as soon as it is born. This a crime according to law, a sin according to religion and an avoidable stress on the woman. 

Acknowledgements

1. Early childhood care for survival, growth and development :  Department of Women & Child Development,  Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India.

2. Girl of Today - Woman of Tomorrow - 2000 :  National Institute of Public Cooperation & Child Development, N.Delhi

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  Education and welfare of the Girl Child gains significance in the context of progress in a developing nation.