AMAR # 568 Celebration of the Girl Child Day at Maria Sharan, Pune

Theme:  Girlchild is a precious gift from God.

We Celebrated the Girl child day at Maria Sharan on 13^th September 2018. The morning session was on CPP (Child Protection Policy). The session was conducted by Sr. Sunita Motheghar, She came along with three candidates Smita, Ujwala, and Priyanka, who had conducted a session for the girls of Keshnand on the topic “Child Protection Policy.”

They began the session with a short prayer. A Sister illustrated the beauty of flowers, their colour, beauty, and attractiveness capture the mind of everyone and people want to destroy their beauty. She gave this allusion in reference to the girls who are raped and deprived of their education, dowry, and injustice done to the girls. The sisters also explained the 2012, POCSO Act (Protection of Children from Sexual Offence), which talks about the good touch and bad touch. In order to get a better understanding, a video clipping was shown, which helped the girls to be aware of their behavior and also made them aware of the child helpline No- 1098. Some more video clippings were played and a discussion was held. The session commenced by allotting a project work that illustrates the performance of POSCO Act.

In the afternoon, we projected a Marathi movie Pikuli based on a girl-child.  It depicts the Indian culture and tradition that still considers a girl to be a curse for the family. The girls watched the film and later we had a lively discussion on the same. This is what we have learned from the movie: Gauri is a courageous girl; she is active and quite aware of the rejection faced by a girl child in Indian society. In spite of these shortcomings, she is ready to take a stand in the family to save her little sister Pikuli.

In the evening we began the celebration with a short prayer. During the prayer, two songs, in Marathi and Hindi were played which appreciated the existence of a girl child.

After the prayer, there was a beautiful musical skit which was presented on the topic ‘Saving girl child.’ Sr.Phoolmani with her creative ideas   prepared the girls to present the skit. Through this skit, the girls became aware and empowered to save the girl child. And they understood the value of their own existence. Before we conducted the celebration we had a poetry competition based on the topic ‘Save the girl child.’ For which we had Pooja, Manisha and Sonali as the winners of the competition.