Saplings distribution

As a part of our Plant a Tree for Life campaign, on 20^th Sep 2016 another tranche of saplings were distributed to the farmers of village Hamiraka in Tijara block.  As per the demands from the farmers, pomegranate and guava saplings were given. These saplings were donated by Mr. Lalit Jalan on behalf of GLMF DMRT 43, Delhi.

EP's collaboration with ABS India

End Poverty has collaborated with ABS India, a subsidiary of Genus world leader in animal breeding to improve the breed of dairy animals in Alwar. Dairy farming is extremely crucial in the area as most of the people here are engaged in dairy farming and income from dairy farming is crucial to sustain their families.  ABS global, headquartered in De Forest, Wisconsin, US is the world leader in bovine genetics, reproduction services, technologies and udder care products. The cluster which covers Bharatpur, Alwar, Dhaulpur, Dhousa and Karoli is a dairy belt that lacks the know-how of scientific dairy farming and farmers remain poor.

ABS product launch meeting was held in Tapukra on 6^th of September 2016. Vinod Kaushik, President of End Poverty presided over the function and expressed his conviction that with the availability of ABS semen in Alwar this area may grow in leaps and bounds and move forward  faster in breed improvement leading to the required change in farm sector earnings.

The Managing Director of ABS India Dr. Arvind Gautham, delivered the keynote address. He shared that ABS India has set up a high end breeding farm in Pune, which is amongst the best in the world which has imported 13 of the best bulls from America. With this genetic input, it is expected that Indian dairy farmers will have access to best semen similar to the one available in the US. The best genomic semen is now available to the farmers of this area at their door step with the support of End Poverty. In the near future there are plans to introduce embryo transfer technology and sex semen to dairy farmers.

Dr. Jayverdhan Tiwari and Mr. Abhishek Kumar from ABS India also presented valuable aspects that will support the effort such as - allow the farmers to choose the semen, managing the future progenies –such that the milk yield continuously grows. How customers can choose and estimate profits by using customised Apps was also shared by the ABS Team.

The program was attended by Zilla Parishad members, Sarpanch, progressive farmers, AI (Artificial Insemination) Technicians, NGOs representativesin large numbers.

 Farmers who had gathered from far and wide from areas like Alwar, Agra, Meerut, Rewari and the AI technicians had many queries that were answered to their satisfaction by Dr. Arvind and his team.

This product  launch was covered by the local media as well.

International Literacy Day 

UNESCO officially proclaimed September 8 as the International Literacy Day in the year 1966. This year, the world will celebrate 50th International Literacy Day under the banner “Reading the Past, Writing the Future”

 

UNESCO 2012 report shows that 13.54 million South Asian students leave school before completing their primary education. Three main reasons for this being expectations of domesticity, safety and infrastructure barriers.

As per the 2011 census data  literacy rate in Tijara block is 50%.  In males the literacy rate is 61% as 86695 males out of total 139884 are literate however female literacy ratio is 37% as 47705 out of total 127023 females are literate in this block. 

End Poverty recognised this problem in its target area of Tijara Block in Alwar district, Rajasthan and came up with Kishori Shiksha Program. In 2010 EP launched Kishori Shiksha Program (KSP) for the girls in the age group of 10 -18 who have never been to school and may never get chance to get the education. KSP started off as a 3 months course and slowly evolved into 6 months and finally to the present 12 month course.

End poverty not only recognised the problem of girls not being sent to school, but also the real reasons and concerns of the society behind this. In addition to the global reasons listed above for the girls dropping out of school, the local population in EP’s target area also had concerns about male faculty teaching the young adolescent girls. EP addressed this concern by training one of the literate girls among their community to be a teacher for adolescent girls between 10 and 18 years of age.  The school runs in their own hamlet, so the distance and safety concerns are taken care of.

 KSP is a 12 months, in-house designed, holistic literacy program for adolescent girls who have not been educated in regular schools. This program provides literacy, numeracy, reading and expressive skills.  In addition to these there are modules on health, personal hygiene and environment awareness. Sewing is also taught as a vocational skill. There are frequent tests conducted and feedbacks are given to the parents in Parents teachers meetings conducted. The  girls also have drawing and colouring classes.

Currently 417 girls are studying in 15 centres. So far EP has been successful in making 1686 girls become literate in many villages of Tijara Block. There is an estimate of still about 10,000 unschooled adolescent girls in the area. EP is striving hard to empower the unschooled adolescent girls of Tijara block with literacy skills.