Udaan - A 360 Degree Approach to Prevent Adolescent Pregnancy in Rajasthan
About Udaan
Keeping Girls in School
Adolescent Health Education Improving Contraceptive access & Choice
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Stories from the Ground Udaan - A 360 Degree Approach to Prevent Adolescent Pregnancy in Rajasthan
Project Udaan seeks to reduce adolescent pregnancies in Rajasthan by leveraging existing government platforms and programmes across the Health and Education Departments, for scale up and sustainability. It adopts a multi-sectoral approach About Udaan to prevent adolescent pregnancy, layering interventions beyond sexual health, to fundamentally change the way adolescent programming is carried on. Keeping Girls in School
Adolescent Health Sri Ganganagar Education Hanumangarh Improving Contraceptive
access & Choice Churu In-school Adolescent Bikaner Jhunjhunu Gallery Reproductive and Sexual Health Education Sikar Alwar Udaan in Press News Jaisalmer Nagaur Bharatpur Dausa Jodhpur Jaipur Stories from the Ground Dholpur Improve choice Karauli Retain girls in Ajmer Sawai secondary and access to Tonk Madhopur Barmer schools contraceptives Pali
Bhilwara Bundi Jalor Baran Rajsamand Sirohi Chittorgarh Kota
Udaipur Jhalawar Pratapgarh Intervention Districts Dungarpur
Banswara
BACK…. Keeping Girls in Secondary School
Udaan attempts to keep girls in school through their enrolment (school-going and dropout girls) at secondary school level while ensuring that the eligible girls receive their scholarship through collective efforts. School and community-level interventions have been designed to About Udaan increase girls’ enrolment at secondary level school by generating wide public awareness on the scholarship schemes and mobilising communities to support girls’ education and facilitate their going back to school. Udaan works towards strengthening scholarship delivery Keeping Girls in School systems (IT enabled) and builds capacities of government functionaries for effective state-wide scale up to ensure sustainability and Adolescent Health Education stability. Improving Contraceptive access & Choice Additional Girls Enrolled Scholarship Fund Disbursed Across Rajasthan Gallery (Udaipur & Dholpur) 25.7 $ Mn Udaan in Press News 55,570 Stories from the Ground 2019-20 30.6 $ Mn 2018-19 51,722 10.4 $ Mn 2017-18 45,270 2019-20
2016-17 42,301 3.4 $ Mn 2018-19 2015-16 39,208 2017-18
BACK…. 2016-17 In-School Adolescent Health Education
In-school adolescent health education is a result of a ‘Human Centred Design’ (HCD) approach to identify effective ways of reaching out to adolescents. The research involved consultations with adolescents, parents of adolescents and other stakeholders in About Udaan Dholpur district. The suggestions through HCD: Schools are the best place to reach out to adolescents, as most of Keeping Girls in School them are in schools and schools provide a safe and enabling Adolescent Health environment to transact. Education In-school adolescents can be the change agents for out-of-school Improving Contraceptive adolescents, thus ensuring the utmost coverage. access & Choice Teachers taking the lead on improving knowledge, attitude & Launch by Member of Legislative Assembly Gallery practices around SRH amongst adolescents would itself lead to Shri Rohit Bohra (Rajakhera Dhoulpur) wider acceptance by the traditional communities. Udaan in Press News Adopting these findings, Udaan project conducted a pilot in limited Stories from the Ground geography to test feasibility and adaptability of the in-school approach to delivery SRH information. Post implementation of this approach spread across 2 academic sessions, the results were encouraging and recognised by the Dholpur district administration led by the district collector and the chief medical and health officer. The administration convinced with the approach had approved scale up across the district from 2020-21 academic session, covering 282 Secondary and Senior Secondary schools reaching to about 78,000 adolescents.
Launch by Member of Legislative Assembly BACK…. Shri Giriraj Singh Malinga (Bari, Dhoulpur) Improving Contraceptive Access and Choice
Udaan is an integrated intervention which seeks to prevent adolescent pregnancies in Rajasthan by leveraging existing government programmes and platforms for realizing girl’s potential and reducing the number of babies born low birth weight from teenager mothers. IPE Global supports the efforts of Rajasthan government in rolling out injectable contraceptive ‘Antara’, that prevents pregnancy for three About Udaan months for all women in 14 Mission Parivar Districts (MPV) of Rajasthan. In addition to this, AntaraRaj, a web application for tracking Antara uptake and reminder services for users has been developed by IPE Keeping Girls in School Global in 2017-18. The initial focus was on the rolling-out of the AntaraRaj web-based application in the 14 Mission Parivar Vikas districts, Adolescent Health however, it is now implemented across all the 33 districts of Rajasthan. IPE Global also support the state governments effort towards Education addressing unmet need for contraceptives by increasing access to quality family planning services. Improving Contraceptive access & Choice
Gallery Total Doses New Users 613,097 Udaan in Press News
Stories from the Ground
301,927
220,580 217,910
88,017 99,478 94,393 140,345 20,039 34,262
Jul17 - 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 TOTAL Jul17 - 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 Total Doses Mar18 (upto Users Mar18 (upto Jan21) BACK…. Jan21) Stories from the Ground
Keeping Girls in Schools Systemic Reforms and Improvement Efficiency in Government Corridors
About Udaan Moving Children Across the Hills of Phalat Saving Children from the Streets of Dholpur Keeping Girls in School Whispered Secret from the Wall of Jhadol Adolescent Health Education Story about 6 brave girls crossing the difficult mountain terrain to go to school : Improving Contraceptive https://www.ipeglobal.com/blogs/the-famous-six-in-the-auto-rickshaw-to-school-58.php access & Choice Story about compromised safety of girls on the streets that hinders their education: Gallery https://www.ipeglobal.com/blogs/walking-undisturbed-for-many-is-a-luxury-59.php Story about a wonderful Teacher who brought back a student to school because of his non-judgemental attitude: Udaan in Press News https://www.ipeglobal.com/blogs/whispered-secret-from-the-walls-of-jhadol-60.php Stories from the Ground Adolescent Health Education Story about how Sexual and Reproductive Health works its magic in our project area: https://poshan.outlookindia.com/story/poshan-news-how-a-schoolgirl-convinced-her-newly-wed-sister-and-brother- in-law-to-take-contraceptive-counselling/341432 Improving Contraceptive Access & Choice Story about Antara working its magic in the field : https://www.ipeglobal.com/blogs/the-antara-mantra-breaking-the-cycle-of-choice-less-choices-for-women-61.php
BACK…. Systemic Reforms and Improved Efficiency in Government Corridors
It was not a great day for Mahima or her parents who had just received the news that the scholarship they had applied for, was rejected for the second time in a row. Mahima’s parents had been waiting for more than a few months by now wishing that somehow their daughter’s scholarship application would get through and were disappointed to hear that the documents they had submitted was supposedly not in place and could not figure out what could have possibly gone wrong. While the parents blamed themselves for belonging to one of the disadvantaged communities for being the possible reason for the rejection, Mahima blamed herself feeling that the break she took between Class Eight and Nine, should be the reason for her scholarship application to be rejected each time. Meanwhile, at the IPE Global Office at Jaipur, the Udaan Team who had realized that the government scholarships were a motivating factor to increase enrollment and retention in schools, found a pressing bottleneck – paper and pen documentation and manual verification of documents - which are the usual practices within the bureaucratic system, delayed the entire scholarship process as applications got stuck or kept shuttling between desks endlessly. The part of the team that advocates and liaisons with the Government Officials to bring forth systemic reforms and improvement, found a way out of this rut and realized the need to connect the Bhamashah - a plastic card that contains details about each member of the family that is required to avail welfare schemes of the government with Shala Dharpan - the online scholarship portal, to mitigate this issue – the solution, was as simple as that. Now, the issue was about convincing a rigid and traditional bureaucracy to change from paper to screen. Soon, during a meeting with the Government Officials from the Education Department, the members of Team Udaan, stepped up and demonstrated the ease in operating an online portal that facilitated senior officers present there to find logic and sense in the suggestion which soon helped in easing their migration from paper and pen documentation to swifter digital systems. This strategy to systematically digitalize the entire process that connected the checking and sanctioning of scholarship applications under one portal within a specific time-bound framework, subsequently brought in accountability and transparency into the system that has established an effective working partnership between the service delivery system and the community. Today, after applying online during one of the E-Mitra Camps (that enables the use of online portals through community-based internet kiosks) organized by IPE Global with the support of CIFF, Mahima, knows for sure that her documents are cleared during the application process itself and that she will soon have her scholarship amount deposited into the bank account she had opened recently. This transfer of scholarship amount through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) - where the financial transaction happens between the government and the beneficiary directly without the interruption of a middleman or a third party, helps ensure that any possible loss of money during transfer of funds is negated.
Team Udaan once again found an opportunity to provide financial literacy to the beneficiaries to help them understand the banking system, importance of financial book keeping, prioritizing needs and rationalizing spending. Mahima, who is part of the group that attends financial literacy training at her school, not only feels confident about handling the scholarship amount she will receive soon but also any other financial resource she will have in the future, more prudently. This tryst between Team Udaan working in the field and in the government corridors to understand gaps on the run and build bridges to overcome them, has resulted in building the strategic cascading movement of the project in a positive direction for the best interest of disadvantaged communities and most importantly for girl children hailing from the most-vulnerable sections of the society. Team Udaan once again found an opportunity to provide financial literacy to the beneficiaries to help them understand the banking system, importance of financial book keeping, prioritizing needs and rationalizing spending. Mahima, who is part of the group that attends financial literacy training at her school, not only feels confident about handling the scholarship amount she will receive soon but also any other financial resource she will have in the future, more prudently. This tryst between Team Udaan working in the field and in the government corridors to understand gaps on the run and build bridges to overcome them, has resulted in building the strategic cascading movement of the project in a positive direction for the best interest of disadvantaged communities and most importantly for girl children hailing from the most-vulnerable sections of the society. These efforts to bring about a progressive change by adopting multi-component intervention strategies that seeks to reduce adolescent fertility and early marriages in order to ensure the right to education for the girl child is implemented by IPE Global Limited in partnership with the Government of Rajasthan supported by Children’s Investment Fund Foundation through Project Udaan.
BACK…. CONTD…. Moving Children Across The Hills of Phalat
The hilly road leading to a small village called Phalat in Udaipur, is figurative of how difficult the path to education has been for the six girls who have re-enrolled in school. The story begins when the Block Scholarship Manager (BSM) of Bhinder received a list containing the names of eighteen girls who had dropped out of school. To understand the reason for stopping education, the BSM visited the village and was soon shocked to hear from the parent’s that they would rather want their adolescent daughters to be grazing cattle and remain safe at home than take the risk to travel the 14km terrain to attend a school. Following through with repeated counselling sessions with the parents, the BSM also ensured that a local newspaper carried an article exposing this issue. When the news finally reached the school authorities, they too began to feel the moral pressure to intervene and assured the parents the safety of the children and even offered to bear the travel cost once their wards returned to school. Though still wary, the parents agreed to ferry their wards in an auto-rickshaw that they felt to be comparatively safe in the winding hilly terrain. Watching the happiness and glow on their children’s face every time they stepped in and out of the auto-rickshaw – every time they left for and returned from school, the parents announced that they would be happy to bear the entire travel cost without the need for any external support thenceforth. For the rest of the other twelve girls who watch these six children go to school - those whose parents still remain unmoved, the school across the hilly terrain, remains a far-fetched dream even today.
BACK…. CONTD…. Saving Children From The Streets of Dholpur
Meanwhile in Dhaulpur, from where stories of young husbands who are still in school finding ways to bring their young wives back to school emerge, during a regular visit by the BSM to a community, a story about a young lad who was preventing girls from going to school was found doing its rounds. As the BSM reached the house of these girls who had stopped going to school and started interacting with the parents to understand what was going on, Praveen, the young lad, who happened to be the person in question, came around and started defending his stance by impounding the audience with his rationale. He mentioned how unsafe it was for the girls to move through a community where it was only considered natural for loitering local boys to goggle, gawk and pass lewd comments at girls. From his point of view, he was only protecting the girls and that high moral stance that he was taking was expected to be respected by everyone in the family – no matter how different their opinion could be from his. The BSM took it as a challenge and repeatedly visited this family where he found not one, but two girls whose education Praveen had stopped. Soon, with more interactions and convincing negotiation, Praveen finally loosened up and agreed to allow his sisters to attend school and the parents and the girls could find no bounds to express their joy in this re- found opportunity – a scenario that they could have hardly even imagined earlier. Soon, the girls started going back to school and recently, the BSM heard that Praveen had once again barred one of the girls from going to school as he was not convinced about her safety and need to attend school. Incidentally, it was found that Praveen, who claimed to be protecting his sisters from the gang of eve-teasers, was a member of the gang himself. At times, in the name of providing ‘protection’, how easily someone manages to justify curtailing the freedom of the other, at home and beyond, we wondered…
BACK…. Whispered Secret From The Walls of Jhadol
Pooja was known as a studious girl in class 10 who was quite regular in attending school. Her Class Teacher, Mr. Narayan Lal Bhatnagar, recalls Pooja to be a well-behaved girl who was consistently good in studies who also fared well in the exams. Little did anyone even realize that things were about to change for Pooja on September, this year. Mr. Narayan Lal found Pooja missing in class. Soon, he was informed that she had done something that was supposedly a taboo in the village, a strict ‘No!’ in her community, something no sensible girl would dare to do… Pooja had eloped. When the Teacher decided to throw his ‘judgmental cloak’ aside and reach out to her parents, he realized that the father of the girl was evidently disappointed and assured him that his daughter would not step into the house again. Back in school, even the Principal wanted Pooja’s name to be removed from the Shala Darpan portal through which she was receiving her scholarship. Mr. Narayan Lal knew that he had to do something; something to help this young girl he knew who deserved better than this. He knew that there were other kids who like Pooja had eloped earlier and found all doors closing behind them as they left the community and education behind. He felt Pooja deserved a second chance and he will do something about it. He soon contacted Pooja over the phone and understood that she was hiding in a nearby village and was safe. His concern now shifted to her safety if she could be convinced to return home. He decided to meet her parents once again and gently, reassured them that everything will be alright if only they would give their child one more chance. Days were long and made Mr. Lal cross lines as he kept shuttling between the girl, her parents and the school to ensure that education must reassure and keep children in school and anything that stands as a blockade in this path must be set right. Finally, the girl returned – returned to her family, returned to her community, returned to her school and to her friends. She did receive her share humiliation initially – especially from her classmates; yet, the constant reassurance, non-judgmental attitude and unconditional faith her teacher had on her, made her survive through such situations. Teachers like Mr. Narayan Lal who go out of their way to open doors to give children a second chance are indeed the true, unsung heroes in communities where we work.
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About Udaan
Keeping Girls in School
Adolescent Health Education Improving Contraceptive access & Choice
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Udaan in Press News
Stories from the Ground
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About Udaan
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Adolescent Health Education Improving Contraceptive access & Choice
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Udaan in Press News
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Adolescent Health Education Improving Contraceptive access & Choice
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About Udaan
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