Raksha – meaning protection; “Protection for women and protection by women.”

The primary aim of Raksha is to “Save and educate a girl child”.

This pandemic has been extremely brutal, resulting in unemployment and loss of lives of many indirectly impacting education predominantly of female girls. In addition, many girls sacrificed their education as they were not able to pay their school fees.
Through Raksha, as per the reports available; we have done the following activities in the last few months:

A) We helped 22 schoolgirls from Indore municipal/government school pay their fees and helped save a year. We helped arrange the entire amount through donations.

B) Women are in no way less than men, and this pandemic has further proven it. Therefore, RAKSHA has launched a series of motivational stories from different states; posted on WhatsApp groups every Wednesday. These motivational stories are of women who are the source of earning for the entire family and how they have supported financially, mentally and medically. These stories would further be shared in smaller villages through Anganwadi workers, spreading the message.

C) Kerala RAKSHA donated Packets of Night Food (Chappathi + Curry) to Kerala Police SPC Department.

Upcoming Projects:
i) Raising funds from trade members/vendors; to be used for the education of girl child. The committee request all office bearers of IRIA, Central council members and state President and Secretaries to support.

ii) continuing with the drive to donate INR 1 per day, which comes to INR 365 per year per Radiologist; the amount could be deposited directly in IRIA Raksha account Delhi.

iii) The State chapter/ city branches may adopt few (4-5) girls; and provide them with the education fee and other education-related stuff like books, dresses etc.

iv) Gifting newborn kits to parents of a girl child with some monetary benefit to bring a smile on their face and boost up their morale.

v) Prepare “Save Girl Child” posters with the sponsor’s name and stick them across India’s ultrasound centres with IRIA and Raksha logo in it.

vi) We have many existing national and state schemes to benefit girl child and help the parents regarding education and marriage purpose, but people are not aware of these schemes.

Beti Bachao Beti Padhao

Story No 1 – from Portblair by Dr Eesha Rajput.

Entire COVID phase has been really challenging for all of us with so much of negativity all around. But amidst such bad times , we have few stories , where a female has come forward, gathered all the courage and helped her family sailing this storm.

#Raksha
#save and educate the girl child
#Womenforwomen
#genderequality

Dr Varsha Sodani
National coordinator, Raksha.