Monday, October 17, 2016

The International Day of the Girl Child

It never becomes boring at Sambhali Trust. There are always new projects coming up and so was it on the International Day of the Girl Child, which was declared by the UN. Since this was a great occasion to become active, the Trust spontaneously took the opportunity to plan a demonstration. So, on Monday, one day before the rally should start, the volunteers introduced the topic in every center. Why should we celebrate the Day of the Girl Child? Which issues could this day be about and why is the irl child so important that even the UN decided to create a special day for it? Well, there are many answers to these questions, which are not possible to list up in this blog entry. Mostly, we talked about child marriages, violence against girls and the lack of education for girls in the society of India. In the end, every center drew some pictures or banners about the topic, writing or painting what ever fits to it. One banner was used for the demonstration in the end.

The women in the JEC creating the poster


Even the youngest girl participated




The next day, we fortunately got the permission of the Jodhpur police department to start the rally. Many women from the centers, the staff, the boardinghome girls and the volunteers met in front of the guest house. Some pictures were taken and even the TV-news were there to interview us. We had the honor to be visited by Mr. Poonam Ram ji Choudhary, Head of the District Council, Jodhpur and Mrs. Tracy Thomson of Trading Boundaries, UK.
Finally the demonstration started at about 8:30 am. Many posters were held up by the participants and during the whole way the crowd sang and shouted slogans, spreading the message about Girls Empowerment. It was kind of an exciting experience. The rally stopped near the clocktower where coloured powder was handed to everyone together with rose petals. Hundreds of people threw the colours up to the sky at the same time and almost everyone turned pink and red with a smile on their face. All in all it was a wonderful morning with a hopefully good impact on the passengers who saw us walking on the street.



The volunteers were walking in the front holding the banner
One of the several posters
"Who run the world - Girls!"
Noshin and Alfisha from the Boardinghome
Waiting in front of the guest house

Even the ground was pink afterwards

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