(visit www.jamkhed.org for more information) The Adolescent Girls Program...(More)

(visit www.jamkhed.org for more information) The Adolescent Girls Program (AGP) is one of the latest of the community groups to have been organized. This program owes its existence to the presence and strength of the Mahila Mandals and VHWs. These women have been empowered to realize the need to educate, build up the self-esteem and confidence in their daughters. In effect the entire community benefits as health and development are promoted by a new generation of knowledgeable, competent, and socially-minded women. The AGP has helped organize adolescent girls groups in 54 villages with an average of 25 girls/village participating. The need for an adolescent girls program is to address the extreme gender inequity and the low status of women in Indian society, particularly in the rural areas. Girl children are given far less opportunities than boys and are considered a burden on the family due to the eventual need for dowry and their marriage out of the family. They are consequently disadvantaged in such areas as education, nutrition, health care, employment and social mobility. The practice of sex-selective abortions and female infanticide is another manifestation of women's poor social standing and has resulted in highly skewed gender ratios throughout India, particularly in the North. Early marriage, sometimes prior to puberty, often results in early sexual initiation and teenage pregnancy thereby compromising education and livelihood choices. Such are the factors that are being addressed and even reversed through the participation of girls in the AGP. In the project areas of CRHP female adolescence is culturally understood as the time between menarche and marriage (regardless of age) known as Kishorvain muli. This criterion is used by CRHP to identify participants for the AGP. Related activities take place in either of two locations -- individual villages and the CRHP compound. In the villages VHWs and women's group members organize groups of girls, which meet weekly or biweekly. During these meetings the girls participate in health education classes as well as being given the rare opportunity to socialize. Organized groups are given some books for a library and provided with high-protein and nutritious food for their meal as a nutrition demonstration. The health of these girls is consistently monitored by the respective VHWs and mobile health team, addressing problems as needed. Groups from several villages occasionally come to the CRHP compound where they stay overnight. The groups are accompanied by the VHW from their villages.(Less)