Bhubaneswar: Commissionerate police launches Enlight 2.0 to provide educational support to underprivileged girls

Aide et Action, VIEWS and Capgemini partner with the police department to implement the initiative, which focuses on 200 girls from economically underprivileged backgrounds
Representative image | Pic: Express
Representative image | Pic: Express

The Commissionerate police has initiated a new scheme called Enlight 2.0 to assist in the education of girl children from economically underprivileged backgrounds, particularly those whose parents work as rag pickers in Bhubaneswar. The first phase of the programme will focus on 200 girls residing in five slums: Sikharchandi Nagar, Sikharchandi Nagar Muslim, Saibanaphula, Tarini and Patra. Aide et Action, VIEWS, and Capgemini are partnering with the police department to implement the initiative. Learning centres have been established in each slum by the VIEWS organisation, where identified girl students from Class V to Class VIII will receive educational support. Aide et Action volunteers will teach Math, Science, English and other subjects every day for one hour in the morning and two hours in the evening, as reported by The New Indian Express.

According to the organisers, many daughters of rag pickers and people from economically backward sections are unable to attend private tuition due to financial constraints, while a few parents from minority communities are discontinuing their daughters' education. The programme will also provide counselling to such parents to encourage them to continue their daughters' education. As part of their Basti Ku Chala initiative, Bhubaneswar UPD officers will collaborate with the programme and act as a bridge between the community support groups and the organisers. They will assist in providing learning and study materials to the girl students with the help of community support groups, stated The New Indian Express report.

In 2015, Aide et Action, VIEWS and Capgemini launched the Enlight programme in nine cities across India to provide education support to girls residing in urban slums. The project's second phase was recently introduced in 14 cities, including Bhubaneswar, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Coimbatore, among others. So far, the programme has aided about 3,000 girls living in slums across the country. Within the next two to three years, around 300 additional girls will be identified in Bhubaneswar, and they will receive educational support, according to Daniel Umi, Director of Aide et Action South Asia's Migration and Thematic unit. Capgemini has even agreed to provide financial assistance to the identified girl students who will pursue higher studies in the future.

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