Bhubaneswar: Building on the success of the multi-phased training of 60 peer leader girls and boys from eight slums of Bhubaneswar Town Centre District (BTCD), under the Socially Smart Bhubaneswar Initiative last year, Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) in collaboration with United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), have inducted a fresh batch of 30 girls, selected from the remaining 16 slums in BTCD, into a three-day capacity building training program.
From this year, the remaining 16 slums of BTCD namely, Duga Mandap basti, Rajkumar baasti, Timber colony, Rickshaw colony, Triranga basti, Birsa Munda 1, Birsa Munda 2 slum, PHD sahi, Janta Lodge basti, Mali colony, Ashok Nagar basti, Kalinga basti, Kalibadi basti, Naveen Nagar, Kanjia Huda, Ramakrishna Leprosy colony and Kharvel Nagar Kali Mandir side basti, have been included in the Socially Smart Bhubaneswar initiative of BSCL, BMC and UNFPA wherein, social organization Humara Bachpan is the implementing partner of the programme. These girls form the slums of BTCD were identified and selected for the training programme, on the basis of their interest to work for their community, along with recommendations of ground level functionaries, councilors and peer leaders who were trained in the previous year.
The three-day capacity building programme, organised at the premises of Centre for Youth and Social Development (CYSD), provided a forum for the young girls from the slums of BTCD, to articulate their views about issues faced by their respective communities. Training modules included several interactive sessions on topics such as personality development, oratory skills, formation of groups in the community, self-introduction, positive and negative relationships, adolescence health issues, education rights, legal rights available for girls. The idea of community issues being put forward to the appropriate authorities for effective solution, was imparted to these girls.
Senior officials of BSCL including General Manager–Operations, Bijay Kumar Swain, OSD, Bhaskar Chandra Pattnaik, Gender and Youth experts along with founder of Humara Bachpan Trust, Dharitri Pattnaik, encouraged the participants during the training sessions conducted by experts and volunteers of the Trust.
After the training, this batch will conduct fortnightly meetings and sessions, as per the session plan shared during the training. This programme is expected to cover around 200 girls of these 16 slums in the coming days. It may be noted that under this initiative, which was started in 2017, on a pilot basis in eight slums of BTCD area, 60 peer leader girls and boys from eight slums of BTCD, had received three rounds of capacity building training last year. They worked successfully for the overall development of their community through community mapping, safety audits and providing youth with skill development training. Under the programme, around 300 girls of these slums were trained in self-defense, in collaboration with Utkal Karate School.