MY ANANDA EXPERIENCE: Sherly Mathews, India Country Director

Ananda Projects

3. Computer Education Center in Vellore District, Tamil Nadu

In this project our aim is to provide opportunities for higher education and employment for marginalized adolescent girls from Dalit community. Guidance Society for Labor Orphans and Women (GLOW), a registered NGO approached Ananda Foundation with a proposal to give computer training for dropout Dalit girls.

This project is important in terms of the uniqueness of its beneficiary group. Dalits are a very distinct group: economically they are still the poorest of poor and socially oppressed. The degree of social oppression varies from untouchability, still being practiced in rural areas, to the sophisticated forms of discrimination encountered in modern urban sectors.

Although the statistics indicate a significant progress on almost all parameters during the five post-independence decades, the gap between them and non-dalits is high even today. 75 per cent of the Dalit workers are farmers or landless laborers in the agricultural sector. Those employed in the urban areas are mostly in the unorganized sector.

Dalit children do not continue education beyond the school level because of their poor financial background and adverse social conditions. Once they are out of the school, they follow their parents to the field as wage laborers and the poverty cycle continues. Among Dalit children, girl’s condition is even worse with one more dimension –gender- added to discrimination against them.

GLOW has been working among this community in Thirupattur taluk of Vellore district since 1996. They have identified the dismal condition of dropout girls in the area. The community and the organization were fully convinced about the need of creating alternate employment opportunities. They recognized the potential in the computer industry and its wide applications.

Computer knowledge has become a desirable skill for any office job. In this context, GLOW proposed a Computer Training Program for Dalit girls. ANANDA-GLOW computer center was established in 2003. Courses were designed to give basic computer education to 75 girls each year which would equip them to take up jobs or give them confidence to continue education. Selected candidates were given specialized software training. Three batches of around 250 students have completed their course from 2003-2006.