Kabbaddi Match at Salia Sahi slum

A Kabbaddi match was held between Young Sporting Club and the Kalinga Stadium team in the Salia Sahi slum on June 23, 2013. The match was inaugurated by Mrs Subarna Ghosh, President, SNEH, and Mr Khagendra Mohanty, President AG Colony.

The match was a part of the youth programme, initiated by Society for Nature, Education and Health (SNEH) for slum girls in Bhubaneswar with support from the Mercury Phoenix Trust, Switzerland. The programme’s objective is to improve women’s social status through sports along with promoting HIV/AIDS education for girls.

Ms Sunita Bohidar and Ms Sanhita Das were two coaches of the teams, respectively. The match was refereed by Mr Alekha Narayan Srichandan and Mr Bishnu Prasad Jena, both National level referees.

Young Sporting Club team was the winners and the Kalinga Stadium team were runners up. The best player award was given to Kamalika Das of Young Sporting Club. Many eminent sports persons like Mr Abakash Khatua, Coach Ranji Team, Odisha,  Mr Sudarsan Pattnaik, international Volleyball referee, Mr Nandakishore Pattanaik, Coach, Nita Ambani Football Academy, Ms Shradhanjali Samantaray, former Indian women’s football team captain, Ms Sarita Jayanti Behera, coach, women’s football team, Kalinga Stadium and Mr Subas Panda, Advisor, SNEH were present on the occasion.

SNEH hopes to integrate sports into a more comprehensive agenda for adolescent girls – literacy classes, life skills training, sports events, workshops on women’s rights, reproductive healthcare and STDs/HIV/AIDS prevention programmes. In short, sports will be used as a starting point for female empowerment. Sports programmes can provide the beneficiaries with safe places to gather, help them build social networks, offer social support and connect them to health and education services and also help them address their marginalization in society.

Also, a major impact of the programme will be improved self-confidence, self-discipline and self-motivation for the adolescent girls. They will gain valuable information on relationships, violence and abuse and also develop self awareness and a sense of personal ownership over their bodies. They will also gain the ability to share experiences, develop healthy relationships, avoid early sexual experiences and know more about STDs/HIV/AIDS infections.

Short Stay Home at Rayagada, Odisha

Women have always discriminated in the society. Domestic violence and atrocities have been perpetrated against defenseless women despite the fact that they have proven best sometimes. So many laws are enacted in our country for the protection of women.

Due to these reasons, SNEH has opened a Short Stay Home at Rayagada under the financial assistance of Central Social Welfare Board, New Delhi to give shelter to the victimised women.

SNEH’s objective is to bring reconciliation, so that the distressed woman can return to her home. Free counseling is given to the woman, her husband, parents, in-laws and other members of her family who are involved. Other supportive and referral measures are rendered if required. The purpose of it is to bring harmony in family life so that amicable living in the family is restored. The woman can rebuild her shattered life with the compassion of others. Occupational therapy is given to the inmates in the home with the hope that she can be self-sufficient and confident in every way and empowered to make her way in life independently and with dignity and self respect after leaving the Home. Free medical treatment is provided so that she can maintain her mental and physical health.  

Activities:

• Vocational Training on tailoring, embroidery knitting, phenyle making, small business, fancy saree making
• Formal education for inmates
• Individual and Group Therapy
• Recreational activities like outings, picnic, film show, games etc.
• Celebrations and observations of days
• Awareness meetings
• Participation in district level programmes 

Attitudes of Local Youth Toward HIV/AIDS

Youth of Salia sahi the biggest slum of Bhubaneswar, encompasses an extremely diverse group of individuals as with any habitation, it is essential for this to be taken into consideration when attempting to portray the attitudes and awareness of this group towards HIV/AIDS. Falling under the umbrella category of youth of Salia sahi are commercial sex workers (CSW), intravenous drug users (IDU), runaway children, child laborers and students. It could be said that a wider range of opinions and attitudes regarding HIV/AIDS exist between these aforementioned groups, than would be apparent between cross-cultural subsets of the respective categories. Some of the most contrasting viewpoints are evident across different socioeconomic sections of society. Enormous differences in knowledge, perceived knowledge and acceptance of HIV/AIDS prevention measure exist between urban and rural youth. Due to my location (being predominantly situated in New Delhi), the majority of my direct exposure to Indian youth was with urban youth. Due to language barriers, my interaction with urban youth of lower socioeconomic status was low, and indirect (i.e. communication facilitated by third party). As with youth around the world, numerous misconceptions exist amongst youth in India.  Notion that HIV/AIDS is curable and not preventable exists, despite existence of billboards dispelling such myths; illiteracy a fundamental impediment too many awareness initiatives.  Much fear and concern surrounding disease resulting from tone of earlier mass awareness campaigns supported by government