Bhubaneswar: “Youth can play a vital role in bringing down the rate of crime against women in our society. At a time when the crime graph against women is on alarming rise, especially owing to misuse of technology, proper orientation and sensitization can enable youth to alleviate the situation,” said Additional DG Crime Records Bureau Sudhanshu Sarangi addressing the final Youth Connect Programme at KIIT University here Thursday.
Sarangi spoke at length on the safety of women and adolescent girls in the society as well as sensitising youth combat the situation.
The Youth Connect Programme is a part of the Socially Smart initiative of the Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited and UNFPA. Working with educational institutions across the city, the Youth Connect Programme aims to reach nearly 90 schools and colleges during 2018.
In 2017 alone, 77 colleges were covered wherein the colleges organised programmes to create awareness on issues of safety and security and healthy life style. This year, programmes are focussing on the issue of gender-based violence.
Different colleges are organising various programmes on the theme to create a better understanding of the issues amongst students through competitions like slogan writing, debates, extempore and ‘nukkad natak’.
Institutes like Lord Jagannath School of Nursing, Utkal University, KIIT University, Government ITI and University of Culture and others have already organised various programmes under the initiative. BK College of Art and Craft plans to paint the walls of the slum located near their institute with messages to create awareness on various forms of violence faced by girls/women.
A representative of the State Women Commission’s, who has been closely associated with these programmes, said that it was a good strategy to reach out to young people and create awareness regarding gender-based violence, legal provisions and safety mechanisms. Police officials, lawyers, women’s commission members are usually the resource persons of the programme, who try to inform students the various legal provisions of the country to safeguard the rights and privileges of women/girls.
Youth Connect Programme also has a Facebook page named ‘youth4smartcity’ where all programme-related information is available. The programme this year intends to reach out to selective schools of Bhubaneswar to help address the growing issues of child abuse as well. This project also has a component to work with young boys and girls residing in various slums in the Capital city and is currently working in 24 slums in Bhubaneswar Town Centre District area (Smart District).