About GiveIndia
GiveIndia is India’s largest and most trustworthy giving platform for donors. With contributions of over 700 crores made to their 1600+ trusted NGOs, their giving community of 1.5M+ donors has impacted the lives of 8M+ people across 23 states in India.
100 Heroes: A DaanUtsav gift to all NGOs by GiveIndia
Children of India Foundation is participating in Give India’s DaanUtsav festival
We are featuring a number of initiatives on important social factors, ranging from Vocational skill training, Education and Maternal Health for adolescent girls vulnerable to and victims of exploitation.
Below are the list of initiatives we have undertaken under this Fundraising Drive:
Change Lives of Children of Devadasis in Bagalkot (North Karnataka) through Life and Livelihood Skills
Devadasi women and their families have been badly affected due to Covid-19. The immediate relief support provided by the Government in terms of free ration and cash transfers support is inadequate to recover & rebuild their livelihoods. Given the current status, it will be difficult for these women to survive with no or low income from sex work and this situation may force them to engage their children also into sex work for a living.
Our initiative aims at empowering 100 Children of Devadasis in Bagalkot district in Karnataka by imparting them with life & livelihood skills.
Sponsor the education of a girl child from a Devadasi family
As per a survey by the Karnataka State Women’s University in 2018, there are 80,000 Devadasis in North Karnataka alone, making the region extremely vulnerable for young girls from the community.The result of this is that the girl’s education gets affected. She drops out of school either due to dedication induced by poverty/parental pressure or due to feelings of humiliation by peers at school. The incidence of post-pubertal adolescent girls from Devadasi families is very high in the regions of North Karnataka. Once they drop out, the girls are even more at risk of getting back into the vicious cycle of sex work, abuse and exploitation.
This project plans to scale up its interventions by providing education support to 500 of these girls (100 from each district – presently school going) who have been identified as high-risk dropouts.
Each girl will be provided with the following for one academic year :
- Support with tuition fee
- School books and other study material
- School Uniform
- Life Skills training focussing on the importance of education for a good life
Provide victims of child marriage access to digital education
Nearly 1.5 million girls in India get married before the age of 18. The state of Karnataka accounts for 23% of India’s child marriages. Poverty, illiteracy and lack of awarness are main reasons for child marriages.
To address the issue,
Provide Maternal Health Support to pregnant and lactating married adolescent girls in Karnataka
Once married, these girls face immense amounts of pressure to have children, which poses a significant threat to their health. In India, the risk of maternal death for early married girls (EMGs) is double that of older females. This risk also transfers to the child, who is 50% more likely to be born stillborn or die within the first weeks of life than a baby born to an older mother.
CIF plans to use these established networks to address the maternal health crisis among EMGs in districts of Bidar, Belagavi and Bagakot in Karnataka by;
1. Providing nutritional supplements to 510 married adolescent pregnant and lactating girls
2. Conducting awareness sessions to 191 pregnant adolescent girls on nutritional food, adverse effect of anemia and safe delivery process with communication materials, videos, audios.
3. Conducting awareness sessions to 319 lactating adolescent mothers on the importance of breastfeeding, growth chart of baby and healthy & nutritional food requirement for the mother and the baby.
Vocational Skill training for 300 girls vulnerable to sexual exploitatio
Devadasi is an institutional exploitation of young girls and women in the name of culture and tradition marred by those with vested interests. This system results in the socio-economical and sexual exploitation of young girls who are dedicated as Devadasis post their puberty. Children of Devadasis who are not yet dedicated as sex workers are also extremely vulnerable to abuse, discrimination and exploitation.
To address the issue, Children of India has been instrumental in facilitating the project Getting Out of the Devadasi System or Children GOOD. The following is the action planned
