WCDC Bihar and UNICEF jointly organize a 2-day workshop to sensitization and orientation forUDAAN project from 22 districts of Bihar

Patna :  Under the joint aegis of Women and Child Development Corporation and UNICEF, a 2-day orientation and training program was organized. Women and Child Development Corporation Managing Director MrsHarjot Kaur Bamhra, IAS inaugurated the workshop in the august presence of Ms. NafisaBinteShafique, CFO, UNICEF Bihar; Program Manager, ShriShivendra Pandya; Project Director, WCDC, Shri Ajay Kumar Srivastava; Administrative Officer, Ms. Poonam Kumari; Behaviour Change Specialist of UNICEF Smt. Mona Sinha; Child Protection Officer Smt. Gargi Saha, along with dignitaries and representatives of other development partners.

In her opening remarks, Managing Director, WCDC, Bihar acknowledged the vital support of UNICEF through which WCDC Bihar has been able to successfully initiate the program UDAAN in 22 districts of Bihar to address issues of child marriage and child labour along with empowering the adolscent girls. She added, “To make Bihar free of child marriages has been the priority of our Hon’ble CM Nitish Kumar.” Speaking about the Bihar’s Samaj SudharAbhiyaan and how the campaign is targeted to address issues of child marriage and dowry, she added that the campaign is a true reflection of Bihar’s priority. Talking about bringing an allround change, Smt. Harjot Kaur Bamhrah emphasized that we want to bring a change for girls and women, it was necessary to sensitize and educate the other half of the population, the men in our society to change their outlook towards women. With the slogan ‘Together We Can’, she expressed her confidence of bringing collectively a positive change in the society and added that in collaboration with UNICEF under the Mahadalit Development Mission, all 38 districts of Bihar will be covered under UDAAN.

Ms. NafisaBinteShafique, Chief, UNICEF, Bihar, highlighted the benefits of adopting a collaborative approach involving various departments to address and eliminate the problem of child marriage. She added, “Bringing together various stakeholders and departments like education, health, social welfare, we will be able to address the issue from deeper levels. Eliminating child marriages from Bihar has been the priority of the Chief Minister and this motivates us to work harder towards our goals.

Shri Ajay Kumar Srivastava, Project Director, WCDC said constant analysis and feedback for the program was important to plug-in any loopholes if found. He also shared details about the project UDAAN, the benefits of the project and how all could contribute to make UDAAN a grand success.

Child Protection officer, UNICEF, Bihar, Ms. Gargi Saha familiarized the participants with the purpose of this workshop. Ms. Madhuri Das, Child Protection Specialist, UNICEF, Delhi, through current and old data of NFHS discussed details about the study based on the pre and post lockdown life of adolescents and adolescent girls and their implications .

Ms Mary Thomas, Child Protection Specialist, UNICEF, Delhi, elucidated details about project UDAAN and how explained gender-based social norms for girls like early marriage, abuse, etc was considered normal and how the societal norms have treated women inferior to men.

Ms. Mona Sinha, Behavior change communication specialist briefed the participants behavior change in the society and why it was necessary to talk about it. She further explained and discussed aspects like being gender blind, gender sensitive and gender transformative.

Child Protection Specialist UNICEF, Delhi, Mr. Aftab apprised the participants about the rules, laws and sections in the Indian Penal Code on child rights and laws made for child protection. During an interaction with the participants, he also suggested solutions to field-specific problems which were raised by the participants.

Mr. Kumar Rajesh, State Project Manager (Monitoring and Evaluation) WCDC Bihar, briefed the participants on the robust implementation of the project on the basis of the updated data related to the project.

Avinash Ujjwal, Senior Consultant, Communication, Women and Child Development Corporation, elucidated the participants about the basic elements of writing reports, success stories and highlighted the aspect about child rights and consent.

Mr. Rakesh Kumar, State Advisor, UNICEF discussed MIS and helped participants resolve their queries on filling of different columns of MIS. He highlighted the benefit of each column information and helped participants fill the right information in the form