Namaste and Swagatam (Welcome) to friends from Join My Village. This great project which invests in women and girls to help them live, learn, earn and lead has come to India. We have been planning this event for a year now and have found three amazing programs to bring to you: two education and one maternal health – in Northern India to support women and girls. 

These programs are located in two of the poorest provinces in India: Uttar Pradesh and Haryana which are both in Northern India.  While Uttar Pradesh is home to the Taj Mahal in Agra, it is also India’s most populous state with over 200 million people – 1/3 of which live below the poverty line.  It also has the highest number of children who leave school to go work.  Haryana province has one of the lowest child sex ratios in the country – meaning that the number of girls is dramatically lower than boys indicating severe neglect of girls at all stages of life.  Thanks to CARE and Join My Village, we can help change that.  

Education is a key initiative not only to Join My Village but also the Government of India which has a constitutional amendment making free and compulsory education for children 6-14 a fundamental right.  The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), or the Education for All, mandates that children not only go to school but have access to schools.  With a population of over 1.1 billion people, this is a daunting challenge.  Many schools are overcrowded, have few resources, and many rural parents question the value of the education because it takes children away from helping support the family.  

To support SSA, CARE created an experimental school called Udaan (to soar) for girls age 10-14 who never attended primary school or dropped out.  On a residential campus, 100 girls work 6 days a week for 11 months to attain a 5th grade education level which prepares them to enter upper primary school.  Started in Uttar Pradesh, this program has a 96% graduation rate in the 10+ years it has been operating.  Join My Village is proud to be supporting the expansion of this program to Haryana province and the first class is already working hard towards their goal. 

The second educational program that Join My Village is supporting is the government-run Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) schools.  These residential schools only enroll 100 girls who are working to complete up to grade 8 and graduate to secondary school within 3 years or less.  In a country where only 40% of children attend secondary school, KGBV’s provide disadvantaged girls mostly in rural areas with the chance to continue their education and gain critical thinking skills.  Join My Village is working with KGBV schools and teachers in Uttar Pradesh to increase the quality of education and teach girls critical life skills to ensure their future success. 

Finally, Join My Village is turning to a new area in India – maternal health.  Uttar Pradesh has one of the highest rates of infant mortality, low birth weight, and maternal mortality in India.  This results in enormous numbers of women and children dying each year.  Gaining access to information, health care, and support groups is critical to reducing maternal and infant deaths.   Join My Village is helping expand programs to reach pregnant women in rural Uttar Pradesh with the information and resources they need to be active participants in their pregnancy and helping to reduce maternal and infant deaths.  

All of us at Join My Village are excited to be supporting these amazing programs.  Each month, you will see blogs from India and Malawi with the personal stories of the women and girls who are benefiting from your actions and we hope you enjoy their amazing stories.  Together, we can continue building a better world for all of us.