
BHUBANESWAR: The Women and Child Development department has planned to form adolescent clubs at the village-level to build entrepreneurial thinking in adolescents and enhance their communication, leadership and problem-solving skills.
These clubs will include both adolescent boys and girls of a village and be managed by anganwadi workers. For boys, there will be two separate clubs for age 10-14 and 15-19, and the peer leaders will be referred to as ‘sakha’ and ‘bandhu’ respectively.
Likewise, two separate clubs of adolescent girls aged 10-14 years and 15-19 years will be formed and peer leaders will be referred to as ‘sakhi’ and ‘saheli’. These sakhi-sahelis and sakha-bandhus along with their group members will hold ‘Advika sessions’ every Saturday of a month at all anganwadi centres, beginning this month. The first Saturday will be observed as Kishori Subhadra Diwas.
The sessions at such clubs will engage the adolescents in learning four things - byabasaya (commerce), sambad (communication), kalpana (creativity) and dakshata (skill) - thereby imparting life skill education to the youngsters and enabling them to play a proactive role at the community level.
One activity will be taken up each month and there will be rotation of activities throughout the year. The Kishori Subhadra Diwas will also include immersive activities such as training and exposure visits, sports and yoga sessions and vocational education. The peer leaders will act as mentors and role models.
Officials of the department said every month, the club members will be asked to speak on problems in their villages to improve their public speaking skills. This apart, they will also be tasked with creating videos to tell stories, draw, and engage in business activities like setting up stalls in village haats and gram panchayat-level melas. Besides, the youngsters will also be provided training in basic skills like carpentry, handicrafts, tailoring, etc., by local skill-based livelihood earners.