Bhubaneswar: Socially Smart Project, a unique attempt on the part of BMC, Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) and United Nation Population Fund (UNFPA) to strengthen social components of Smart City, has now been expanded to cover another 76 slums which are beyond the boundary of Bhubaneswar Town Centre District (BTCD) area.
The project, initiated in the year 2017, was restricted to 24 slums within the areas of BTCD. But now, in its third year, these new slums have been included in its purview of activities. Therefore, 100 slums are to be covered now under this innovative programme.
The BSCL project focuses on children from slums and efforts are underway to make them ‘socially smart’. The project is being implemented at community-level through partner NGO, Humara Bachpan Trust.
Manorama Mullick of Humara Bachpan said, “The new activities in the 76 slums would start with community mapping process, to be held in 16 large slums, and line listing of youths in all the slums. The line listing process will help identify the actual number of youths in the age group of 10-25 years, their family background, qualification and current social status.
It will also attempt to identify their training needs and aspirations, which would be used for linking them with appropriate training opportunities. Around 162 youths of 24 slums (within BTCD) have already been linked with various skill-training programs and 18 of them have already started their own enterprise or have been employed.
Eighty young boys and girls of the new 76 slums would be provided 9-days of training as per the module of UNFPA which will be followed by youths taking the lead in forming groups to discuss issues of importance with other young children of the slums.
In the last two years, 332 girls from 24 slums have received 10 days of self-defence training program at Utkal Karate School. In the current year there is a plan to train 500 girls in self defence.