Restricted From Technology By Her Family, Today, Pooja’s Favourite Program is Microsoft Word

Today more girls than ever go to school. However, despite progress, women and girls continue to face multiple barriers based on gender and its intersections. Factors that prevent equal enjoyment of the right to quality education include age, ethnicity, poverty, and disabilities. Another major barrier to women and girls in rural areas are their families.

Parents worry about the cost of education and future expenses. Costs are often measured in terms of distance to school and other direct costs involved such as the fee paid, books bought, a dress made etc. This influences their decision of whether their daughters should continue taking an education or not.

Pooja, a 17-year-old girl from Vejalpur, Ahmedabad, grew up with strict parents. They did not provide her with too many opportunities and restricted her from accessing technology. However, she was always interested in operating a computer.

Then, she heard about BharatCares and the program - Free Computer Training and Digital Literacy Program for Girls and Women. Immediately, she persuaded her parents to enrol her. Though they were hesitant at first, eventually they agreed.

Today, Pooja is pursuing her Bachelors in Commerce and is grateful to BharatCares for launching the initiative in her neighbourhood for her and her peers to benefit from.

She says, “Thank you very much for offering such a wonderful chance to us that would help us in our future. We not only learned to use computers, but the training program provided us with digital literacy skills required in the twenty-first century. Now, I enjoy working on computers, and my favourite programme is Microsoft Word.