Women GP members trained for their new roles

To empower the newly elected women gram panchayat members, The Hunger project in association with Jana Shikshana Trust is engaged in capacity building training programme for selected members from Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts.

The training programmes are being imparted to make them function as change agents and bring transformation in their villages.

A total of 280 women gram panchayat members from 60 gram panchayats have been selected for the programme. Of the selected members, five have been elected as presidents and nine as vice presidents of their respective gram panchayats.

 The training programme helps them to create development agenda by focusing on health, nutrition, education, water, sanitation, employment, rights of an individual and so on. It will also help in tackling problems such as domestic violence, alcoholism and corruption, said Jana Shikshana Trust Director Sheena Shetty. 

It will also create awareness in women about their rights, educates them about their powers and responsibilities as panchayat members, build their capacity to create a vision and plan of actions to achieve it, he added.

He said the women representatives were made to understand the concept of political leadership, identifying their leadership qualities and trained in vision building.
The elected representatives will be acquainted with the welfare programmes of the government, gram sabha and so on.

Trust Director Krishna Moolya said a follow-up workshop to strengthen their skills in communication and knowledge of laws and government programmes will also be held. The women leaders are trained to form groups to carrying out activities. They will be asked to mobilise women to attend gram sabhas, in which panchayat plans are evolved and beneficiaries for various beneficiary programmes are selected.

He said the training programmes are participatory in nature and are conducted to provide women elected representatives information on their key roles and responsibilities. The training programme begins with yoga and pranayama. It is purely an activity-based event. Songs, successful stories are told to create awareness and develop leadership qualities among them.

A total of 34 members in Mangaluru, 40 in Puttur, 79 in Bantwal and 38 in Udupi have already been trained.