E-Paper
15 women from Siddharthnagar train for paramilitary forces
These young aspirants have convinced their communities and panchayats to support them in their efforts
A group of 15 women from Badhni block of Siddharthnagar have been training for the paramilitary forces’ exams under the guidance of SSB officers in the border districts. These young aspirants have convinced their communities and panchayats to support them in their efforts.
Vandna Chaudhry, 18, said that she is appearing for her first exam on Tuesday. “We started training in November, and we exchange the competitive exam materials amongst the four of us who are training from my community.”
The books have been made available at resource centres set up at their gram panchayats, so that the girls preparing for the exams can have access to study material. “We go to the SSB camps a few times a month and speak to the women officers there. They have been giving us tips on how to study and prepare for the entrance exams,” she said.
“They told us that there would be physical fitness tests as well, and since then, the girls and I have been going on practice runs in the mini stadium,” said Chaudhry. The group of women, aged 18-23, have also managed to convince unwilling parents of their friends to allow the young women to fill out application forms for the paramilitary forces.
Sub-inspector (SSB) Manit Lather said, “To start with, we went to these districts to tell the communities that the SSB too is a career option for young women. We told them about the different types of vacancies that they can apply for. We invite them to our camps as well to teach them about how to fill out these forms.”
So far, the SSB border outpost has been sending 18 women officers in rotation to two locations in the district, to speak with the young aspirants. “We usually prefer to send the younger women officers since they have a fresher memory of the exam preparation and procedure,” said Lather.
“We spoke to the pradhans of five villages, and within the premises of the panchayat buildings, built resource centres where we stocked the books and materials the young women would need to study for these exams,” said Umesh Gupta, child rights activist and researcher. These resource centres are being developed by child rights organisation Plan India.
“We made a list of books after speaking with the girls. The books cost around ₹5,000 – 6,000 and we have set up five of these resource centres wherever the panchayats showed interest. The lady officers go to the communities once a week to advise the young women.”
“We faced some backlash from our communities as we were practising for the physical exams in the stadiums wearing shorts. They said that girls should not wear small clothes and take up these jobs,” said Roshani Khatoon, 18. “Ten of us have been studying at the resource centre in our village together. It feels great because prior to this, we were not even aware that this career path was an option for us. Even the female officers who come to advise have been posted here recently. They told us what to study and how to go about the preparation,” she said.
