Shashwat Sahbhagi Sansthan

Women Literacy Centres are being run in Gondlamau development block of Sitapur district. The 16 centres are making all out efforts to make 480 women literate. These women are members of self help groups, safe motherhood committees, other community based organisations, elected panchayat representatives and community leaders.

Most of the women attending literacy centres are from Dalit and disadvantaged communities, with whom Shashwat had earlier intervened in a project aimed at prevention of female foeticide and promoting birth and death registration. The implementation learning of the project was that it was almost impossible for a poor and Dalit woman to allow her daughter to continue education in adolescence and convince other family members regarding this.

As a result of interventions, women have developed capacity of reading, writing and solving basic arithmetic and are applying these skills in their real life context. Apart from using the newly acquired skills in SHG and SMC management, many women have   reported improvement in decision-making at household level and greater capacity to counter gender issues in families and society.