International Day of the Girls is celebrated every year on October 11th since 2012. The celebration of the day reflects the emergence of girls and young women as a distinct coherent in development policy, programming, campaigning, and research. The theme this year was With Her: A Skilled Girl Force.

The main aim of the day is to promote girl empowerment and fulfilment of their human rights while also highlighting the challenges girls all over the world endure.

Roshini Kurade from the Sahyog Project supported by Plan India is a girl change maker from Maharashtra. To celebrate this day, she took over Diplomatic Missions from the state of Maharashtra at the Swedish General Consulate.

During her meeting with Urlika Swedish Consulate General Roshini emphasised: “We need to put in more efforts to respect human rights, and women must be represented at all levels of society.”

We need to work alongside all girls to expand existing learning opportunities, chart new pathways, and call on the global community to rethink how to prepare women for a successful transition into the world of work.

On this day, Sahyog project organised awareness rallies on Save the Girl Child and a movie screening in different padas of Sanjay Gandhi National Park (Borivali) and Aarey Colony (Goregaon) to empower girls through active support and engagement with parents, families, and the wider community.

To celebrate just as Roshini went to Swedish Consulate another Roshini from Sahyog Project, an active member of the Adolescence Group took over the job of a ICDS worker for a day. She conducted pre-school activities with the children and completed the monthly weighing of children upto to the age of 5. She noted down their height, weight, and MUAC measurements and informed their mothers on their progress.

“This activity was planned to give Roshini an opportunity to become a teacher. She is an active member of her group from the past three years, and today she applied her skills which she has developed.” says Nitin Shinde, Senior Program Officer, CCDT.

As per the UNICEF report, many girls are not developing the skills they will need to secure decent work later in life. 10% of primary-aged girls are out of school, and many more are not able to progress to secondary school; they need better support in developing skills in reading and math.

The day ended with the movie screening on ‘Save the Girl Child.’ An hour long session was conducted to discuss issues such as gender inequality, and the importance of education for girls and their rights. The community people nodded in favour to support the cause by providing the best care, and education to their girl child, and spread the message across in their communities.