Today when most
Indians are living with modern ideologies; taboos like child marriages are still
common in India, despite being illegal. This ancient tradition not only
deprives girls of education, but also makes them vulnerable to early
childbearing, sexual coercion and violence.
According to recently
released census data- Nearly 12 million Indian children were married before the
age of 10 years-equivalent to Jammu & Kashmir’s population. From which,
7.84 million (65 per cent) married children were female and 5.4 million (44 per
cent) married children under 10 were illiterate — 80 percent of them female —
indicating how lower levels of education correlate with early marriage.
India has an estimated
240 million child brides, or one-third of the world’s child bride population,
according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.
Usually these little
brides do not immediately move in with their husbands or in-laws. Parents
follow traditions and often wait till their daughters turn 15 or older to send
them to live with their spouses. Even then, they don’t attend school in the
interim years while they’re still at home.
Veerni Institute - a
nonprofit in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur provide free education to such little brides
across the western Indian state.
Veerni is a Hindi word
for a strong and powerful woman.
The mission of the
Veerni Project arose out of an encounter with a village worker in a remote
village of Thar Desert in Western Rajasthan. The project began in 1993 with the
aim of bringing much needed healthcare programs for women and children. Since
that time, Veerni has supported and educated a large number of girls aged
between 12 and 18 granting them the opportunity of exercising their human
rights in one of the world’s poorest regions.
The institute today
houses 100 girls from villages around Jodhpur, out of which 30 are already
married. Several others have graduated; many are now registered as college
students.
The boarding school
was set up in 2005. Primary schools in villages offer education till class 5—with
most girls discontinuing studies thereafter. Veerni focuses on providing “seven
years of higher education for the girls,” Mahendra Sharma, director of Veerni
Institute, told Quartz.
“We have found a
loophole in the system and are trying to fill the gap of a secondary
education for young women who have been married. We firmly believe that it is
of prime importance for all girls to complete senior secondary education in
class 12.”
The Veerni Institute
is set up as a boarding school, offering not only a place to stay but also
health care, daily meals, uniforms, books, computer training, and access to
sports. The annual cost for each girl is $1,560. However, the girls attend for
free, because the fees are covered by the school’s philanthropic partners: the
Global Foundation for Humanity in the U.S. and the Association du Projet Veerni
in Switzerland.
Sharma, who has been
working with Veerni Project since 2001; four years before the boarding school
was established. During that time, he and his colleagues traveled from village
to village. Girls in more than 40 villages received medical care and classes in
sewing and artisan work—a means to make a living.
“The idea was to help
women to take part in the decision-making, and become the earning members of
the family,” Sharma said.
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| Girls at Veerni Institute sit and eat together |
Veerni project also
faced many counteractions of villagers,
When the Veerni
project started setting up literacy centers in these villages, it faced some
serious resistance, villagers were rather hostile towards the idea of educating
women.
“Stones were thrown
once at the team’s jeep as an expression of anger, It took a long time to
persuade the men to allow their daughters to attend.”
With the help of older
women in the community, the men finally came around. But they were not fully
convinced.
“The men still
insisted that this could not take place in a public area. The lessons should be
conducted in one of the village houses,"
The project started by
teaching rural women basic skills, such as sewing and crafts making. More than
40 villages in Rajasthan were adopted, and the plan was to start literary
centres in each of these villages. But teachers were difficult to find.
Gradually through
targeted and confidence building and to emphasize the importance of educating
girls the Veerni team was able to convince families to send their daughters to
a boarding facility in jodhpur, now they would attend a good school and could complete
their schooling.
 |
| Students in a class at the Bal Gopal School in Jodhpur. From the Veerni Institute, 6th grade to 8th grade students are sent here to study |
The first year,
parents were called to Jodhpur “to show them the facilities that we would be
providing the girls.”
"Parents were
asked to delay sending their daughters to their in-laws, and in return the
institute would provide boarding and education for free."
“After seeing our
facilities and the quality of our education, the parents trusted us,” Sharma
says.
“Parents are even
sometimes willing to break these marriages if they understand that the girls
can now pursue a career and become a source of a steady income to the
household,” -Sharma says.
Quickly, the house was
at full capacity: 70 girls. One year, it even reached 100 students.
Some of the students
have used their education to give themselves a new life.
In June 2017 the Foundation Veerni was created as a Swiss non-profit making foundation governed by the Swiss Civil Code and subject to the supervisory authority.
The Foundation Veerni
supports the Veerni Project, (www.veerni.org), based in Rajasthan, whose
mission is-
To facilitate
secondary education of adolescent girls from rural areas of the Thar Desert in
the Indian State of Rajasthan.
To empower young girls
to gain independence so that they can play an active role in the lives of their
communities and their country.
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