Life Skills Development for Adolescent Girls at Risk with Special Reference to Rescued Devadasi Girls: An Intervention Study

Life Skills Development for Adolescent Girls at Risk with Special Reference to Rescued Devadasi Girls: An Intervention Study

Devadasi means to servant of God. The word is derived from Sanskrit language. It is originated from two words ??deva and ??dasi which mean God and servant respectively. The devadasi is attributed to girls dedicated to a Goddess called Yellama through the marriage to the deity. There are some important psycho social implications of devadasi system. The system of devadasi is a form of slave trade. In this system the young girls are exploited in the name of religious practices. A major disadvantage of this system is that it disintegrates an individual especially an adolescent girl in context of her overall development and social development in particular. Intervention has always been the essence of social work. Life skills education can be given prime importance and adolescent girls especially in situations such as rescued devadasi can be trained to apply life skills to redress their mental health problems. Teaching life skills to adolescents would help them to transform knowledge, skills, attitudes and values into real abilities. The aim of the current study was to assess the level of Life skills among the rescued devadasi adolescent girls and provide life skills training and evaluation of the overall effectiveness of the Programme. The design used was a pre experimental research design without a control group. 25 adolescent girls who are rescued from the devadasi system were part of the study from northern Karnataka. Based on the need assessment carried in the initial phase of the study, an intervention Programme was developed for the participants based on the 10 life skills laid out by the World Health Organization. A standardized Life skills assessment scale developed by Vranda (2009) was used in pre assessment and post assessments. The results indicate that the Programme was effective and displayed statistical significance in rendering the participants with Life skills. The implication of the study reiterates the importance of developing tailor made life skills Programme for vulnerable groups and girls at risk. KEY WORDS: Life skills, rescued devadasi girls

Joseph Diptty

Social Work