ZENITH International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research ____________ISSN 2231-5780

Vol.9 (7), JULY (2019), pp. 129-133

Online available at zenithresearch.org.in

ROLE OF NGOS IN SOCIAL INCLUSION OF GIRL-CHILDREN IN

SLUMS: A CASE STUDY OF KISHORI VIKAS YOJANA
OF SEVA BHARATHI
M. SUDARSHAN REDDY
DEPORTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES,
UNIVERSITY OF HYDERABAD, TELANGANA, INDIA.
E-Mail: hcu.msr@gmail.com.

ABSTRACT
The present paper is trying to draw attention to this issue by studying Kishori Vikas Yojana
[KVY], an empowerment initiative for girl-children in slums by an NGO named ‘Seva Bharathi’
which mobilizes Corporate Social Responsibility [CSR] funds along with other voluntary
contributions. Seva Bharathi is running nearly 150 Kishori Vikas Centers [KVCs] in Hyderabad
city (India) through which girl-children are provided free tuition, training in education and
various life Skills involving Health, Hygiene, etc. which directly helps in progressing towards
achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations. This study uses
absolutely primary data. For the purpose of collecting data, structured interview schedule is used
and data collected from the stakeholders in Serilingampalli area of Hyderabad. The focus of
analysis is to look at improvements if any in predetermined aspects among the girl children were
assessed. Findings of the study suggest that there is a significant improvement in school
attendance, academic performance, health-hygiene awareness, self-defense, communication
skills, environmental awareness, self-employment skills among the children. Some school drop-
outs rejoined in schools. In all KVCs merit-based scholarships were provided for girl children.
Paper based on the fresh evidence, makes an effort to engage dialogue on education and
empowerment of girl-children living in slums through the success-story of KVY.
KEYWORDS: NGOs, Kishori Vikas Yojana, Seva Bharathi, Girl-children, Social inclusion,
SDGs.

Introduction
Today’s girl children are the tomorrow’s mothers nurturing the future generation. For future
generation citizen to be empowered, present generation girl children should be empowered. To
achieve the women empowerment, challenges faced by underprivileged girls need to be addressed.
John Snow, Inc. (1990) defines empowerment in a behavioral sense as the ability to take effective
action. In JSI’s view, empowerment has various dimensions and manifestations. It encompasses an
inner state (sense of self, of one’s autonomy, self-confidence, openness to new ideas, belief in one’s
own potential to act effectively) and a person’s status and efficacy in social interactions. In
particular, it is the ability to make and carry out significant decisions affecting one’s own life and
the lives of others.
Girl children living in slums are most underprivileged as their families living in slums have
paltry income, poor housing, and drainage facilities. They lack both financial resources and
informational resources. As a result, their food quality, surrounding environment and health-
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Vol.9 (7), JULY (2019), pp. 129-133
Online available at zenithresearch.org.in

hygiene often becomes substandard. The open drains, the diseases which follow due to the
unhygienic conditions in the slum, the poverty all these make living even more difficult for the
slum dwellers. Mortality rate and diseases among the children and adults are also high in slums
which is an extra expense to low income people. Because of social and economic reasons,
parents prefer to send their children to work instead of sending them to school. Even though the
State provides free education, mid-day meals in schools, the children fail to utilize such benefits.
This alienates them from the main stream of the society. According to the reports of the United
Nations Millennium Campaign to halve world poverty by the year 2015, women make up two-
thirds of the adults worldwide who cannot read or write, work two-thirds of the world’s working
hours, earn only 10 percent of the world’s income and own less than 1 percent of the world’s
property.
Girl children living in slums are the most disadvantaged, vulnerable as they face social,
economic, health, hygiene and other challenges. Even though the State provides free education,
mid-day meals in schools, the children fail to utilize such benefits. Extreme poverty, illiteracy,
and everyday struggle for survival of the parents continue to remain as a constraint to help their
children, especially girl children. The children go for menial work and contribute their labor to
help their parents. To bring them out of this cycle of vulnerability across generations, prolonged
guidance and support is needed.
For the social inclusion and empowerment of women of future India, there is a need for social
inclusion of today’s girl children, especially those living in slums. To bring them out of the cycle
vulnerability, a prolonged, guidance and support is needed. Here there is a scope for NGO’s to
provide that helping hand so that the girl children can have access to education and acquiring
skills needed to improve their lives. An NGO named ‘Seva Bharathi’through Kishori Vikas
Yojana [KVY], an empowerment initiative for girl-children in slums is working towards
empowerment and social inclusion of girl children. This case study is planned with an objective
to assess the role of KVY in the social inclusion of girl children and elaboration of KVY model
so that it could be used for further improvements and emulation where ever needed in future.

Kishori Vikas Yojana[KVY] model of Empowering girl children

Under KVY, Seva Bharathi is running nearly 150 Kishori Vikas Centers[KVC] in Hyderabad
city through which girl-children are provided free tuition, training in four focus areas namely: 1.
Education, 2. Health-Hygiene, 3. Self-Employment, and 4. Self-Defence. KVY conducts
monthly camps which focus on training the volunteers on different aspects like folk arts, moral
values, education, health awareness, income generation courses, social justice, social
empowerment to mention a few. These volunteers, in turn, teach these aspects to the slum
dwellers.
KVC engages children for two hours daily, six days a week. The first hour focuses on education
helping them with homework, explanation of concepts, etc. In the next hour focuses on the other
three life skills (2 days each in a week).

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Vol.9 (7), JULY (2019), pp. 129-133
Online available at zenithresearch.org.in

1. Education:
 homework, doubts clarification, concept explanation, pre-exam expert guidance

2. Health-Hygiene:
 seasonal home remedies, sanitation counseling, clean environment, health camp if
needed
 provides subsidized sanitary pads (Rs.10 per pack of 6 pads)

3. Self-Employment:
 vocational courses in manufacturing soap, surf, detergents etc.
 painting on glass, fabric, artifacts etc.
 hand embroidery

4. Self Defence:
 Training in Karate, Yoga

For running KVC, government or private school premises, or any volunteer’s houses are used
with prior permission from the concerned authorities. Each center with around 20-30 children is
organized by a girl volunteer (organizer) called Nirvahak. For every six centers there will be one
Paryavekshak (Monitor) who visits one KVC each day to help and monitor the activities. Apart
from these KVCs celebrate festivals, Days of national importance, and conduct competitions in
sports and arts. Provides scholarship for meritorious, councils parents against child marriages,
towards rejoining of drop-out children in schools.
Data and Methodology
This study is based on primary data. Structured interview schedule is used and primary data
collected from the stakeholders to know the perceptions of the improvements if any in aspects of
human development. The focused aspects of the study are school attendance, academic
performance, Health-Hygiene awareness, self defence, communication skills, environmental
awareness, self-employment skills. An informal meeting was held with Seva Bharati organizers
for understanding the functioning of Kishori Vikas Yojana and to ascertain the feasibility of the
key aspects. Then five Kishori vikas centers [KVC] were selected in Serilingampalli area,
adjoining to University of Hyderabad based on feasibility. Five Focused Group Discussions were
held in each of these 5 centers and their perception of improvement in different aspects is
obtained. Structured interviews of nirvahak (organizer) of each center and paryavekshak
(Monitor) of these five centers was conducted to obtain details of the structure and content of the
activities conducted in these KVCs. Personal observation was conducted for five days (one day
each) in these 5 centers.

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Vol.9 (7), JULY (2019), pp. 129-133
Online available at zenithresearch.org.in

Results and Discussion

The findings of the present study are categorized into 7 broad aspects. The detailed analysis and
discussion of the study results are presented in the following 7 sections.
1. School attendance
Before joining KVC, some girl children used to miss school because of sanitary concerns, could
not follow the lessons in school and complete homework. Hence demotivated from going to
school. After joining KVC they perceive to have more awareness, ease in following lessons and
doing homework. In two cases, as mentioned by children, parents were counseled to continue
child’s schooling when they were planning to discontinue.
2. Academic performance
Children perceive a relative improvement in their academic performance in math’s, science and
English subjects because of extra guidance received after school in cordial atmosphere.
3. Health-Hygiene
Volunteers and children opined that health tips, home remedies and precautions explained in
KVCs are helpful for them. As said by one volunteer, her family members have also started
seeking and following her advice (health tips). One volunteer opined many of the children would
not use sanitary pads if KVC does not supply them at low cost.
4. Self defence
Everyday warm-up exercises and regular practice of 13 karate techniques have improved their
physical fitness and agility. A group of 35 girls selected from KVCs of Hyderabad had
performed their Karate skills in front of thousands of audience on 20th January 2019. As told by
organizers one of them is receiving free of cost professional training and wants to choose karate
as her profession.
5. Communication skill
Because of interactive games and collaborative activities, children are able to converse with each
other freely and with strangers without much hesitation (when needed). Volunteers felt that talks
by experts on communication skills helping themselves and children to have smooth conduct.
6. Self-employment skills
After attending self-employment vocational course, in chalk-piece making, a group of students
started making chalk-pieces for their school. Children expressed confidence that they can support
themselves with these skills in the future.
7. Environmental awareness
Children were aware of Swatch Bharat program, negative effects of plastic and burning of waste
materials collected. They responded positively regarding plantation, greenery and use of
dustbins. Most of them have participated in cleanliness drives and campaigns on occasion of
Gandhi jayanthi.

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Vol.9 (7), JULY (2019), pp. 129-133
Online available at zenithresearch.org.in

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)-KVY roll towards achieving SDGs

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 global goals set by the United
Nations General Assembly in 2015 for the year 2030. The SDGs cover social, economic and
environmental development issues including poverty, hunger, health, education, gender equality,
clean water, sanitation, affordable energy, decent work, inequality, urbanization, global
warming, environment, social justice, and peace. After observing the results, we can say that
KVY programme is directly helping in progressing towards achieving Ten of the seventeen
Sustainable development goals set by the United Nations namely: poverty, hunger, health,
education, gender equality, sanitation, decent work, inequality, urbanization, and social justice.
Conclusion
The present study evaluated the role of KVY in the social inclusion of girl children living in
slums of Hyderabad city. Findings of the study suggest that there is a significant improvement in
school attendance, academic performance, Health-Hygiene awareness, self defence,
communication skills, environmental awareness, self-employment skills among the children.
Seva Bharathi’s effort, through KVY, is facilitating and supporting the empowerment and social
inclusion of underprivileged girl children. Since this study included only 5 out of more than 150
KVCs and does not include many ad-hoc programs conducted in KVCs, a broader study would
have given a better understanding of the roll and impact of KVY. As expressed by volunteers:
“any activity will be a success only if it is embraced and followed by the principal stake-
holders”, this KVY initiative is also successful because of the effort of Seva Bharathi volunteers
to ensure that the purpose of the initiative was clearly understood by the stake holders i.e. the
local slum dwellers. Moving away from traditional classroom teaching-listening approaches, and
incorporating need or opportunity based skills with futuristic vision makes the program worthy
to be emulated across India.
References
Envision2030: 17 goals to transform the world for persons with disabilities Enable. (n.d.).
Retrieved March 10, 2019, from
https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/envision2030.html
John Snow International (1990). Empowerment of Women Program. Program Description,
John Snow, Inc., Arlington, VA
Seva Bharathi. (n.d.). Retrieved March 10, 2019, from http://www.sevabharathi.org/
Vijayanthi, K. N. (2002). Women's empowerment through self-help groups: A participatory
approach. Bulletin (Centre for Women's Development Studies), 9(2), 263-274.

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