Gulechi - The Wooden Champa
Gulechi is a tribal word derived from the Santhali word meaning ‘Wooden Champa’. ‘Gulechi’ is facilitating the creativity of the girls in Ashram Schools & urban hostels meant for disadvantaged children and youth from tribal and backward class backgrounds. Adolescent girls from 4 ashram schools of Khurda district are covered under this programme and sensitized on personal health, hygiene and enhanced capacity of reading and writing habit through the setup of libraries by the project. It further focuses on facilitating their creative arts skills like painting, dance, music, poetry writing etc., while discussing things that are quite close to them e.g. different tribal language, food and food practices, water, climate etc. The teachers working as Learning facilitators have come up with different methods to make the learning more attractive and child centered which have brought more clarity among adolescent girls on the different themes taken up in different months e.g. myself, my village, environment, my school etc. Objective of project Gulechi got shared and the sessions were planned to conduct on Saturday and Sunday without interfering with the School curriculum. During this year total 32 sessions were carried out in all 4 ashram schools.
The objective of urban hostels is empowering young women on Sexual Reproductive Health Rights and gender based violence. More than 100 young women are given sessions in different batches. Through different sessions they are given orientation on themes like Menstruation Hygiene Management, Gender and its stereotypes, Gender based violence, Dance Movement Therapy (DMT). Various interest groups have been formed and the girls have selected their own interest areas like reading group, Writing group, debate group, singing and dancing group, drama group. They have selected their group leaders and have taken their tasks accordingly. Spoken English was their keen interest where they actively participated to improve their own skills. So as to make a reading habit and use their leisure time productively, books were also provided in their library (as per the preference of the girls).