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Rural Chhattisgarh
Sahayog Foundation has chosen rural Chhattisgarh as the geographical
focus of the Foundation's work because it is one of the poorest
regions in India, and because of Ramdas Lamb's long time familiarity
with the
area and its people.
The Foundation believes the best way to help the rural poor
of India with both economic poverty and over-population is by
providing educational opportunities for their youth, especially
girls between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. In the 1970s,
the percentage of girls from poor families in the village elementary
schools was about 10%. Although the Indian Government has made
great strides in bringing education to the rural areas, the
percentage has only increased to about 15%.
This is because most girls do not attend school beyond the eighth
grade, for three primary reasons. The first is that most rural
schools only offer classes up to eighth grade, and the closest
higher secondary schools may be up to a distance of up to 10
km away with no available public transportation. The second
and more pivotal is that most girls have begun menstruation
by this age and are therefore seen as marriageable according
to local custom. In rural India, young women are often married
within a year or two of puberty. As a consequence, they will
often have their first child when they are still only fourteen
or fifteen, and may end up having as many as six or seven children.
Due to changes in the health and sanitary environment of India
since Independence (1947), there has been a marked decreases
in the infant mortality rate, but there has not been a comparative
decrease in the birth rate. As a result, the population in the
villages has risen dramatically. This has led to increased poverty
among those who can least afford it, especially those from the
lowest castes, traditionally known as Untouchables, but in recent
times referred to as Scheduled Castes, Harijans, or Dalits (this
latter term is predominantly used only by non-Hindus for self-identification).
We have come to realize that one of the most effective methods
to alleviate these problems affecting the lowest castes is through
the education of young women. When a village girl continues
her education up to 12th grade, her situation and the village
she lives in change a great deal. First, because she is still
in school she will not get married until the age of eighteen
or nineteen, so she will not begin having children until the
age of about twenty. Also, educated mothers tend to have far
fewer children than uneducated ones. Finally, an educated mother
is not only more likely to encourage her own children to become
educated but also become more resourceful and more capable of
finding work to help supplement her family's income.
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