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 Battling the vicious knot -
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Kavita Rokade, 19
A group of girls, half of them school dropouts, sit on the floor in a room in a Mumbai slum. A girl is making them go through what she taught them in the last few sessions: “Early mothers don’t know how to manage responsibilities.” “Studies are important.” “Stand up for your rights.”
Kavita Rokade, 19, is instructing slum girls in Marathi on the dangers of child marriage. Her mother got married at age 16 and sister at 14. She saw that the same was happening to girls in her neighbourhood. A presentation by Ashoka Youth Venture inspired her to do her bit. So while attending English classes and awaiting her Std XII results, she holds sessions for slum girls. “I want to see change,” says Kavita, who lives with her parents, brother and sister in a Chembur slum.
Kavita’s mother encourages her. But she says, “When Kavita goes for her English classes, neighbours ask, ‘Where’s your daughter going? It’s time for her to get married’.” Her father, too, wants her to get her married.
But Kavita dreams of a bank job and to be a social worker. Says she: “What happened to my sister shouldn’t happen to anyone else.”
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