THIRUVANATHAPURAM: Two paper cups, connected at the top by three threads each, like a balance. One cup had the photograph of a girl pasted inside with a huge stone to weigh it down. Girls studying in classes VII, VIII and IX in the Tholicode panchayat took out all their earrings and chains they had and dropped them into the other cup, but no amount of ornaments would bring up the ‘girl-cup.’ This was a representation of the one-word theme ‘Dowry’ that they were asked to do in twenty minutes from locally-available materials at the adolescent lifestyle education camp organised by Sakhi at Tholicode."Oh, we were amazed by the creativity of the children in all the panchayats where we held camps. This is a pilot project aimed at proper life skills education for adolescents that can be taken up all over the State,’’ said Mercy Alexander, director of Sakhi, a city-based resource centre on women which has been actively involved in gender issues.These camps were held as a prelude to a continuous course in lifestyle education starting next month, with one-day sessions every month till next March.The classes that begin with ‘Who Am I’ sessions target personality development and communication skills of the students, along with subjects like women’s rights and law, social analysis, women’s leadership and so on. A class on law would range from a visit to the local police station to get rid of the fear factor in the young minds to skits on misuse of internet and mobile phones."The classes on reproductive health invariably have the participation of doctors and nurses and those on environment, experts from that area. We also help the students learn skills such as cycling to improve their mobility and confidence and martial arts like ‘kalaripayattu’ to improve their physical and mental health, not to mention self-defence. The transformation in the children has to been to be believed,’’ said Geetha John, project co-ordinator at Sakhi.In the year-long course, to bring out the cultural and literature skills, training would be given in ‘sinkarimelam’, music, folklore arts, dance, yoga and sports and games too. "Since we have been working through the local bodies and local facilitators such as the Anganwadi workers, Asha workers and ICDS supervisors, even if Sakhi withdraws, the programme can be continued at the local-level,’’ said Mercy.The last of the summer camps concluded at Aruvikkara on Thursday. Aruvikkara and Tholicode were just two of the ten remote panchayats where such two-days camps were held, the others being Kilimanoor, Pallikkal, Muthakkal, Nagarur, Vembayam, Mangalapuram, Edava and Panavur. All these ten village panchayats will conduct the course for the coming year starting from June.
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