| Lara
Dutta Visits Adolescent Assistance Projects
.............................................................................................
Tuesday,
January 23, 2001 - Day Two
CINI PROJECT IN
KOLKATA
Lara
Dutta, UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador ,Visits Three Adolescent Projects
in the Slums of Calcutta
On
January 23, Lara Dutta, the current Miss Universe and UNFPA
Goodwill Ambassador, spent the day visiting three project sites in
slum settlements of Calcutta. Miss Dutta visited three centers
that attend to the needs of desperately poor children and
adolescents, many of them abandoned, abused and homeless. The
project, initiated by the Child in Need Institute (CINI) in 1975,
now provides education,
a safe home environment and health care, including reproductive
and sexual health, to some 5,000 children and adolescents,
particularly girls, in 10 slum wards.
Dr.
K Pappu, CINI Deputy Director, explains the basic approach of this
grassroots community
NGO: “Education is the foundation upon which good health is
based. It is the foundation for advancement and development.
We want to ensure that every child has an opportunity to
get a basic education.”
Once
children or adolescents get a basic foundation in reading and
writing, they are then sent to the formal educational sector. Once
there, they can get continued help, if needed, through 54 coaching
centers set up in slum areas to assist with homework.
As
part of its country programme for India, UNFPA provided funds for
the family life education material produced and distributed by
CINI. This
community-based initiative began to work with street children and
homeless adolescents, but now includes the girl children of slum
dwellers forced to drop out of school in order to help earn money
for the family. “But without a basic education, these
adolescents will never rise out of poverty and
improve their lives”, points out Dr. Pappu.
Today,
CINI offers three distinct,
but related services to slum children and adolescents: half way
houses where abandoned, abused and orphaned children can get a
basic education, and a safe place to stay where they can interact
with other children; reproductive health information, counseling and education
centers where they can get practical information on health care,
including sexual and reproductive health, personal hygiene, and
counseling by trained staff; and community-based clinics where
female adolescents and women can get testing and treatment for
reproductive tract infections and sexually transmitted infections.
CINI
now operates 50 centers in Calcutta servicing a population of
500,000 out of a total population of 5.5 million slum dwellers,
which comprise close to 50% of the entire population of the city.
Their
goal, as explained to Lara Dutta, was that eventually CINI wants
to reach every disadvantaged child in Calcutta’s sprawling
slums, which hold 5.5 million people, or close to 50% of the
city’s entire population.
“Development
begins with education and good reproductive health,” explains
Dr. Pappu. “Once a child has this foundation anything is
possible.”
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