BALURGHAT: An awareness camp was held on Monday to mark the end of National Child Protection Week (NCPW) with children and adolescent girls of East Mostafapur village in Hilli block of South Dinajpur district.
It started on November 14 and concluded on Monday. A rally with children and adolescent girls was also organised. In this awareness camp, various issues of prevention of child marriage were discussed to raise awareness among children and adolescent girls belonging to East Mostafapur Anganwadi Centre. The girls, who were present in the event, took an oath to stop child marriage.
Various works are being undertaken under the Scheme for Adolescent Girls (SAG) and Kanyashree Prakalpa (KP) in the Hili block. It is a unique initiative to merge the SAG and KP for the holistic development of adolescent girls from the age group of 11-18 years to address their multi-dimensional vulnerabilities in education, nutrition protection and health. The convergence programme is being implemented through the ICDS cell of the state government.
Implementation of the various rights of children, including child marriage, sexual abuse, and child trafficking was also discussed.
The camp was attended by Arpita Das, worker of SAG-KP project of Hili ICDS centre, Malati Tigga, Phulobala Burman, Shanti Hansda, Kaleswari Pahan (Anganwadi Workers), Putul Mahato, Mana Roy Mandal (Anganwadi Sahayak) and Ashish Urao, an active worker of a social welfare organisation were present in the event.
Suraj Das, Secretary of a social welfare organisation Ujjivan Society, said: “An awareness camp was held on Monday to mark the end of the National Child Protection Week. Such awareness camps will be conducted regularly with more and more girls to strengthen child protection in various areas of South Dinajpur district and to build a child marriage free district.”