Dalit Women Forum — good news from India

In September 2020, We Encourage started our very first piloting cause with Sharon Elizabeth Freundlich from Dalit Women Forum to support girl children and give them the chances to go back to school. Here are our latest updates from Sharon:

My journey so far in trying to support three girls to get back to school

I was unable to visit the girls as there were too many COVID-19 cases in the slum. However, Dalit Women Forum (DWF) volunteer made several attempts to visits the girls’ parents to counsel them so they could send the girls back to school.

It was not an easy job for the volunteer as the girls’ parents are daily labourers. That alone was one hurdle — the second hurdle was that the parents were not willing to send the girls to school for they need someone at home to take care of home chores while they work. The third hurdle was that the parents were not available at the same time for counselling. Yet another hurdle was that schools are operating online only until March 2021.

I had to wait to get in contact with somebody from school staff regarding paying the school fee.

After a long wait I got an opportunity to speak with the three girls. I shot a video of the girls addressing questions like what their situation is and how they feel about the possibility of getting back to school this year. After this, my intention was to visit the schools of the girls and enrol them. However, one of the girls’ parents showed no interest in sending their daughter back to school. They also thought that we might send the girl somewhere else because we took a video of the girl. Eventually, I had to drop said girl from the support because of the arbitrary reasons voiced by her parents. Luckily, Dalit Women Forum found another girl in need for support to be enrolled back in school. So far, the journey has not been easy at all.

Finally, I was able to visit the school and meet the principals. I then found out that as the girls were dropouts for the academic year 2020–2021 they need to pay the complete school fee for the academic year. There are still three months left to complete this school year. After that, they will be promoted to the next grade. DWF was about to pay the school fee for the academic year 2021–2022 with the funds raised. However, the school cannot accept future fees until previous year’s school fee is fully paid. I had to consult Anna from We Encourage to ask for advice on the pending fee. After consulting Anna, I came to the conclusion that I will pay the current academic year fee partially, and the future fee partially. The remaining balance for the current year remains to be paid by the parents. Thus, it is still challenging.