The Government of India has declared January 24th as the National Girl Child Day in the year 2009. From this year onwards, the day will be marked by a series of events designed to celebrate the girl child. The events will continue right up to March 8th, which is the International Women's Day.
This day was chosen to address concerns relating to education, health and nutrition of adolescent girls as well as empowering them to tackle ills like child marriage, dowry, domestic violence, female foeticide etc.
Although there has been some improvement in literacy and gender gap in effective literacy rate in the last decade. Sharp fall in child sex ratio in many States and Union Territories has been a major set back. In Assam the sex ratio is 935/1000, which is a far better scenario than the other parts of the country.
We at ICCW (Indian Council for Child Welfare) Assam, organized a day long program to celebrate this occasion with the little ladies of our shelter home for girls, 'Kalyani Nivas' and the Anganwadi trainees of our Anganwadi Training Centres.
Guest speakers were invited to speak on nutrition, health and importance of education. Nutrition is another issue needs to be seriously looked into. Nearly one third of the adolescent girls are under nourished in our country. 56.2% women in the age group of 15 to 49 are anaemic.
An awareness campaign was launched to mark the occasion. A rally was taken out on the streets of some parts of the city.
Street plays were enacted at several places as part of the awareness campaign, depicting the importance of the girl child.
Part of the distinguished guests
The event was well attended by the members of the organization, Government officials, invitees and the beneficiaries of the organization. Our little ladies enjoyed the day thoroughly and by the end of the day they seemed a lot more knowledgeable and confident.