Kishori Utkarsh Pahel

ABOUT THE PROJECT

India has the largest adolescent population in the world, 253 million, and every fifth person is between 10 to 19 years.

These adolescents have immense potential to contribute to the social, economic, and cultural growth of India as a nation. However, adolescents especially girls lack access to information on issues affecting their lives and have limited space to develop competencies crucial for change. They are exposed to multiple layers of vulnerability due to pernicious social norms which in turn affects their ability to move freely and to make decisions affecting their work, education, marriage, and social relationships. Kishori Utkarsh Pehal, an adolescent health awareness initiative, a collaborative program of the Bharuch District Administration, supported by the DCM Shriram Foundation and implemented by BharatCares/CSRBOX Foundation was launched on the 12th of December 2022 in the Jhagadia Block of Bharuch District, Gujarat. This initiative is a catalytic approach structured as an awareness and aspiration-building program among adolescent girls that aims to leverage the existing village, block, and district-level ecosystem of various government programs and seeks to bring synergy and coherence in addressing critical information and knowledge gap for adolescent girls.

OUR INTERVENTION

‘Kishori Utkarsh Pahel’ is envisaged as an intervention for building the capacity of adolescent girls with a cascading model of education and awareness in the areas of menstrual health, nutrition, adolescent health and hygiene, life skills, rights and entitlements, and several government schemes that would work as a key foundation to prepare these girls for a better role in the society.

The program focuses on all adolescent girls comprising school-going girls, drop-outs, and out-of-school girls to ensure every girl who has been at a disadvantage point to any socio-economic problem, gets an opportunity to be a part of this program. The program focuses on six key areas:.