The area under the Bhubaneswar Town Centre District (BTCD) would make the girls empowered with self-defence techniques so that they would feel more protected and safe.
The steppingstone for the programme was laid on Monday with the self-defence training programme for adolescent girls from BTCD slums commencing at Utkal Karate School in the city. 40 girls between 14 years and 25 years participated in the counselling.
Ten batches with 32 members each will be trained for 10 days each in self-defence training. The training will be held Utkal Karate School, founded by famed martial art trainer Hari Prasad Pattnaik. After the completion of the training, the participants will be given certificates along with a nominal stipend from BSCl under Socially Smart Programme.
The programme is also planning to have one session for each batch by an official from the Police Department that would make the girls aware of some of the important initiatives being undertaken by the department to protect the rights of girls/women.
Humara Bachpan Trust (HBT) is the implementing partner for the project for community mobilisation. The girls were selected by HBT.
The participants were girls from Shantipalli Telugu Basti, Masjid Colony and Jagannath Basti on Monday. The training will be for two-hours every day. The girls were quite impressed with the demo presented by national medallist in karate and recent Gold medallist in Asian Power lifting Championship, Anupama Swain, in her teens.