THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Marking an ambitious move to foster women’s safety and empowerment, the department of sports and youth affairs is all set to roll out a self-defence and empowerment training programme for girls and women, by training them in martial arts including boxing, karate, kalarippayattu and taekwondo.
Officials confirmed that the programme will be inaugurated this month, and the initial procedures will begin soon. The training will be provided in a full-fledged manner to school students from the next academic year, senior officials remarked.
Planning to roll out in multiple phases, the training will initially be provided to the police officers who are trainers of Student Police Cadets (SPC), who will, in turn, train their cadets. Special training will also be given to around 2,000 physical education teachers of schools. These teachers will later look after the training for other students in schools, further plans for which will be decided by the education department later.
The department is also planning to execute this as a continuous programme to provide free training for all women without age bar, with Jimmy George Indoor Stadium as its key centre.
A detailed handbook on how to provide training has already been prepared by the sports department with the help of experts from the State Council for Educational Research and Training. More modules for this programme will be released in the coming years. More than physical training, the course will comprise anti-panic training, measures to increase assertiveness and situational awareness.
“Our aim is to have at least two periods weekly in the school dedicated to this in all government and aided schools, which will be mandatory for all girls. We will also ask them to submit videos of students engaging in this mass activity to monitor the quality of the programme,” said a higher official from the sports department. He added that all students will be trained in all four martial arts, along with fitness training.