Dear Friends,
As I write this year-end edition of our blog I have just received an urgent text from our partner, the Federation of Slum Dweller Women, in the state of Gujarat, India, informing us of the brutal government demolition of 2,000 slum dwellings in the city of Ahmedabad. Some 6,000 impoverished men, women, and children, the majority of whom are ‘low-caste’ Dalits, have been made instantly homeless. The Federation is working around-the-clock to provide food and shelter, as well as filing emergency petitions to the High Court to intervene.
I wish I could write that this is an isolated incident, but it’s not. Slum settlements that are located on desirable land in India are often flattened with little advance notice or warning, and with even less regard for the families that live there.
Imagine being faced with a choice, just as these men, women and children are: do you stand up and fight for yourself, your home and your family? Do you turn instead to destructive behaviors like conflict or violence? Or do you lose hope and give up?
Your sustained partnership enables us to respond to crises like these. I’m asking you to help us now to empower a girl in these slum communities with the attitudes, strengths, and practical skills she needs to change her life. For just $20/month you can become a GiveStart sponsor, enabling an adolescent girl to participate in CorStone’s programs.
As you may be aware, 2011 has marked an important transitional year in our organization’s 36 year history. Facing financial crisis at the end of 2010, coupled with the loss of our lease at our long-time Center facility in Sausalito, we decided that this year we would focus almost exclusively on the launch and implementation of one major program-one with the potential to impact the greatest number of vulnerable people at the least financial cost and with the greatest possibility to scale over time-a program primarily based on the principles we’ve practiced and taught for more than 36 years.
That project for us was found in the slums of Surat, India-specifically, with 1,000 adolescent girls in over 20 slums in this bustling city of 6 million people. These girls embraced our Children’s Resiliency Program for Girlswith open hearts and an inspiring thirst for practical skills they could use to improve their lives.
All the girls enrolled in this program are from the Dalit caste…living in urban slums of 5,000-10,000 people per slum, with no running water, no sanitation, few if any toilets, annual monsoon floods that reach levels 5-7′ high, and schools where the teacher to student ratio is commonly 1 teacher for every 150 students.
Building on the successful results of a 2009-10 pilot project with 100 high-poverty girls in an 800 year old Muslim enclave in New Delhi, this time, we added a quasi-randomized control design to the program in Surat, with approximately 500 girls participating in the program and 500 girls serving as a control group. Similar to Delhi, we found significant gains in mental health, self-esteem, and problem-solving skills. For instance:
- Girls scoring Normal on standardized psychological assessments increased from 66% at baseline to 79% at post-test-after just 3 months (2 hours per week) in the program. Similarly, girls scoring Borderline decreased from 22% at baseline to 9% at post-test. The Control group showed no statistically significant changes.
- Girls were better able to control their anger, were more hopeful, and were better able to cope with challenges such as health problems, school exams, conflicts with peers and family members, and crime and violence in their environments.
- Parents insisted that their daughters attend the sessions because they believed they couldn’t learn these skills anywhere else. Many parents asked if they could enroll in the trainings for their own benefit.
Next Steps
This past year, partners such as Abbott Labs and Nike Foundation have shared our excitement, supported us, and encouraged us to scale our programs in India. Likewise, the response from the women in the slums has been overwhelming. In October 2011 we met with the leaders of 25 of Surat’s slums, and in collaboration with them, and other partners in Mumbai and Delhi, we have developed a comprehensive plan to expand our programs to over 100 slums in 5 cities over the next 3 years.
We have named this initiative ‘Girls First!‘, a low-cost, scalable, train-the-trainer program that will directly impact the health, education, and employability of 50,000 high-poverty girls in India in 3 years. The average cost over 3 years will be less than US$50 per girl per year-while providing training and employment to nearly 700 women in 100 slums in 5 cities. Our initial four local implementing partners have already been lined-up to serve the first 10,000 girls in Mumbai, Delhi, and Surat beginning in mid-2012.
Girls First! will deliver a one-year training program that begins with our foundational Children’s Resiliency Program for Girls to foster the self-esteem, values, attitudes, and mental health training and support that girls need to put their dreams into action, improve their circumstances and achieve short and long-term goals. This will be followed by rigorous training in topics such as adolescent and reproductive health, clean water, life skills, leadership development, and entrepreneurship to foster self-sufficiency.
Working together with partners like you, CorStone has brought connection, warmth, strength, and hope to thousands of people for over 35 years. Please help us to continue this tradition of serving those in need, helping people to live with love, compassion, and dignity and helping them to help themselves.
Your tax deductible donation can be provided online at CorStone, or you can sponsor a girl through the GiveStart program by clicking here. Donations can also be mailed to CorStone at 250 Camino Alto, Suite 100A, Mill Valley, CA 94941.
Thank you for your care, your concern, your partnership, and for helping to ensure that our heartfelt work together can continue.
Wishing you a joyous holiday season,
Steve Leventhal Tom Green
Executive Director President, Board of Directors
Tags: adolescent girls, children, community impact, CorStone program, crisis, india, poverty, resiliency, slums
