One woman officer has been ushering changes in the lives of the women of Mandla district in Madhya Pradesh by empowering them in her own way: by taking them through the various phases of basic literacy skills of important fields.
The officer is District Collector Harshika Singh, IAS, and she is taking steps to provide the mostly tribal women of Mandla with basic education first, and then graduate to financial and computer literacy. Foe the last two years, she has been successfully carrying out this 3-phase literacy programme.
In an exclusive conversation with Indian Masterminds, Ms. Harshika Singh, explained the initiative step by step.
BASIC LITERACY
It is very difficult to handhold an adult and help them take their very first step towards education. But with the District Collector’s ‘Niraksharta se azaadi’ (Freedom from Illiteracy) campaign that began on 15th August 2020, the adult women of Mandla were able to hold a pencil and chalk in their hands to write their future themselves. Through this, over 7000 tribal women could learn how to read and write their names and basic words.
FINANCIAL LITERACY
The officer then realized that it is equally important for these women, who mostly run the house themselves, to understand the importance of keeping their finances secure. Making them financially literate would help them to avoid getting scammed by dupers. Therefore, the officer took the campaign to another level by training them about basic bank literacy. With her help, these tribal women can now go to banks, operate their accounts, write cheques, withdraw money, etc.
COMPUTER LITERACY
Now that the women of the district had mastered basic literacy and financial literacy, the officer decided to help them in overcoming the third and most important literacy in today’s time: computer literacy.
The world has become dependent on computers, as together with the internet, they bring a systematic approach to our life and make it easier.
Therefore, taking her campaign to the next level, Ms. Singh introduced computers to the tribal women and is now helping them in gaining basic computer literacy.
“We already have Mahila Gyanalaya running in districts where educated ladies do handholding for other not-so-educated ladies. Going ahead of basic literacy and numeracy plus financial literacy, we have started basic computer literacy, wherein the educated girls of the Gram Panchayat are now volunteering for the same,” she told Indian Masterminds.
A BASANT PANCHAMI GIFT
On the auspicious occasion of Basant Panchami, Ms. Singh began the basic computer literacy campaign in all the 486 Mahila Gyanalaya of the district. Under this campaign, the most educated and well-read women of Mandla will handhold other women who are not yet computer literate and will teach them the basics of computer knowledge.
“We are using the computer available in the Gram panchayat for the cause. Our objective is to tell them about computer and internet and make them use it as per their needs,” stated Ms. Singh.Over 2000 women have participated in the campaign, the classes for which are held every Tuesday and Friday from 2-4 pm. The campaign is an effort by Ms. Singh to make the tribal women computer friendly so that they can use the internet also for different purposes.
