The recent horrific attack on two young women in Delhi has caused outrage across India and the world,  highlighting once again the need to change social attitudes to women and gender-violence. Over the next two weeks, we will be hearing from some members of the seventeen Soroptimist clubs in India, exploring the work that they are doing to educate and empower women and girls, with a view to eliminating violence and enabling them to fulfil their potential.  This week’s blog will look at some recent activities of SI Bangalore and SI Pune Metro East.

SI Pune Metro East have conducted three training sessions on Anger Management and dealing with conflict. The interactive sessions focussed on situations in the home, exploring different scenarios with help from a psychologist, looking at trigger situations and helping women to be safer and in a more powerful position.

Nisha Gosh of the club explains: "Violence against women must
be understood in its local social milieu, in this case the social
fabric of India, which is highly complex. Despite educational progress
of girls and employment for women and girls, attitudinal changes of
society largely remain archaic. At
SI Pune Metro East we feel that creating awareness  and helping change
attitudes is important as this will perhaps  sow positive seeds
for the future generations."

SI Bangalore marked two significant dates in December by organising events to support vulnerable groups of girls and raise awareness of their human rights. On World Human Rights Day, the club celebrated with girls at the  Jeevodaya Ashram.

"Jeevodaya Ashram is a centre for
the empowerment of Women", explains Ratnabali Datta of SI Bangalore.  "It is under Prison Ministry of
India, and is run by Sisters of the Holy Cross. Most
of these girls have been rescued from various
unpleasant circumstances; we thought it would be appropriate to
celebrate this day with them."

"We
conducted a quiz with questions like who was the
first Indian Judge of High Court? Prohibition of child marriage Act
was introduced in which year? When was the anti-dowry Act
passed? There
were 10 girls at the home and they were divided into 3 groups. They
were very spontaneous and had taken every effort to learn these
questions."

"Our
President spoke to the girls about Human Rights and Women in
Indian Society. We
also celebrated Christmas with them, distributing gifts and snacks.One
of our members had dressed as Santa which brought immense joy to the
girls of the home."

"The
girls had painted beautiful “Diyas” with wax in between
which were given to us as a token of their appreciation. These are small earthen lamps used during the Indian festival of Diwali."

On World Disability Day (3 December), the club met children at the Brindavan Education Trust and distributed books and snacks. The Trust provides special needs education programme for children with learning disabilities, ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, dislexia etc. Currently
34 children attend at primary school level and 35 at high school
level. The programme encourages specific skills such as reading,
comprehension and maths.

Since February 2012, SI Bangalore and SI Widnes (UK) have jointly supported the Trust and members sponsor two girls as part of their "Special Stars" Project.