There is a saying in India: "You don't pour water on another man's field." In other words you don't waste your money on what is only going to benefit someone else. Throughout India and Bangladesh it is the son who is a parent's insurance against old age and poverty. A daughter will leave home when she marries and go to live with her in-laws, becoming part of her husband's family and giving them th
ereafter most of her time and resources. Why spend your money on her? It's a system that can result in the wife becoming little more than a slave to a tyrannical mother-in-law and often causes great distress. It also ensures that a girl is thought of as a temporary responsibility by parents and a teenage girl as a positive liability! Because of this way of thinking, girls in general are more poorly educated than boys and less well cared for. When they reach marriageable age - maybe as young as 13 in some cases - they are quickly married off. A girl who stays too long at home is a great worry to her parents. In Bangladesh the average age of marriage for girls is still under 15 years and family poverty ensures that girls often receive poorer education and care than boys. Next Steps Asha is working to help some of these girls; to bring new hope into their lives through education and training opportunities; to make them feel valued and purposeful and to give them a voice that can ultimately change their own society. It involves some 86 girls and 8 local staff working together in training and work groups. Almost all these girls have been educated by Meider Jonno Asha in the past. Now, aged from 17 to 22 they are being given training and work so that they can earn their own livelihoods and be independent women.
