MANOJ SINHA
Ramgarh, April 26: Project Rishta, an initiative of Tata Steel Foundation (the social impact arm of Tata Steel Limited), which started in 2004, involves regular interactions with adolescents, educating them about adolescent health including marriage after attaining legal age (18 years of age), pregnancy after completing 19 years of age and providing them with adolescent health encouraging them to avail the services etc. They are also given information about contraception, STIs, consent and healthy relationships. This initiative started in West Bokaro in 2013 and has covered 36 villages so far.
Under this initiative, dynamic, assertive and ambitious adolescents are identified and groomed as Saathiyas. They are trained under a number of programmes, which include moral resuscitation, outdoor team-building exercises, vocational skills and leadership training. Selected Saathiyas to participate in DHWANI (a youth conclave organized by Tata Steel Foundation) to learn, discuss and share their perspectives with experts on social issues. They are now being nurtured as potential young change-makers who are self-motivated to contribute to the solution of social problems by identifying and solving social issues. So far five young changemakers from West Bokaro have been awarded. In addition, 168 youth have been linked with vocational skilling programmes.
Project Rishta has made a deep impact on the lives of teenagers. In the last 3 years, it has reached out to more than 7250 adolescents of West Bokaro, and a total of 228 Saathiyas have been produced. 92 adolescent girls, who were to be married before the age of 18, were put off with the support of peers and community members. 60 adolescent couples are delaying pregnancy till the age of 19 and are being followed up regularly. The adolescent fertility rate in the region has declined from 46 in FY21 to 36 in FY22 and 17 in FY23. Child marriage in the region was 2.75% in FY21, it has now come down from 1.88% in FY22 to 1.20% in FY23.
Going forward, this initiative will be implemented on a large scale for the entire Mandu block, which will cover 88 villages in 40 panchayats, touching almost 100% of the adolescent population. Over the next five years, the key goals are to reduce child marriage among girls by 25%, reduce the adolescent fertility rate by 25%, and create 320 potential young changemakers.
