The Mantra of Empowering Young

Recently Rekha and Inderjit Sharma, 75+ year old senior citizens of Mumbai, India had a manifestation of their continued efforts towards empowering young girls - daughters of a rickshaw driver, or a vegetable seller, or perhaps a cobbler or cleaner; where their education is the least priority and restriction is norm.

It is to such girls that they provide support by encouraging them to continue their studies, teaching them to communicate in the world language 'English' and alongside facilitating them with the skill of sewing garments for children and women using sewing machines and fabric donated by friends and family. 

The year long effort of sewing and coaching concluded by facilitating them with a platform to experience public interaction. This was made possible on two occasions - The first being at the annual exhibition of the Dilkhush Center at Juhu where they set up stalls of fun games like 'blow in the cork' and 'how steady is your hand' - both the games were made by the children and taught them to apply their learning of physics. Needless to say that the experience of trying to blow the cork in and keeping the hand steady while carefully taking the wired loop across the twisted band to avoid touching it and sparking the beep brought a load of delight for the challengers - collecting the coupons and donating the same to the school taught the children how to give without expecting anything in return.

The second interaction was at the School of Life at Andheri Versova Link Road where the sewed garments were first displayed on hangers with price tags, the team was taught how to respond to queries about the garments, complete the transaction, packing and finally taking feedback. 

The simple objective of this exercise was to empower the young girls with the confidence to interact in society, acquire a skill that they can use to earn a livelihood and learn the intricacies of what it takes to create a home grown venture.

The result was heartening as most of the garments flew off the hangers thanks to the enthusiastic visitors who encouraged the girls for their efforts and hard work. 

The smiles on their young and hopeful faces when the exhibition came to a close were priceless; while for Rekha and Inderjit their minds were busy making plans of how to fulfill new dreams in the new year.