The Rural Girls Empowerment Programme funded, by Save the Children – UK, covered 36 villages in five blocks of Chittorgarh (Kapasan, Chittaur, Nimbahera, Gangrar and Bhadesar) district and nine villages in one block (Baneda) of Bhilwara district of Southern Rajasthan. The project was initiated in the month of January 2002. The project covered 45 villages in these areas.
The project focused on the development of constituencies of children, especially girls, to tackle any form of violence or deprivation which the girl child faces within and outside her community. The effort succeeded in developing a model of good governance in this process.
Overall objective
Building constituencies and capacities of rural girls in the project area, with the purpose of creating a questioning society, in addition to sensitising other stakeholders – the family, the society, the police and others on the whole issue of prevention of violence against girls.
Long-term objectives
(1) strengthen institutions at the state and national levels for effectively addressing the issue of violence/discrimination against girls in the society; and
(2) strengthen/sensitise and create non-formal organisations at the village levels to monitor and lobby against gender discrimination.
Short-term objectives
(1) reduce the violence against girls and women in the society, by forming a loose network of various stakeholders;
(2) simultaneously analyse the socio-economic causes and consequences of violence against women and girls and its impact on the society in the project area, during the project period;
(3) produce a reader-friendly training module on legal literacy on violence against girls on the basis of the needs assessment vis-à-vis various aspects of violence affecting the status of women in the society; and
(4) strengthen the local self-governance institutions, by enhancing the skills of the members, with a special focus on the female members.