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The major problems that have been identified in the community we work with are poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, homelessness and crime, and violence. Poverty is the condition when the individuals experience a scarcity of resources that are necessary to sustain their living conditions appropriately. Illiteracy is when individuals do not possess the basic literacy skills of reading, writing, and numeracy. Due to a lack of literacy skills, they certainly experience problems in the implementation of tasks and activities. Unemployment is when individuals do not have any job or work.
Homelessness is a condition when they do not have proper housing accommodation. In rural communities, it is unfortunate that women and girls are the ones, who in most cases experience criminal and violent acts. These include verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual harassment, neglect, and discriminatory treatment.
Therefore, in order to alleviate these problems and enhance the livelihoods opportunities of rural individuals, there have been formulations of measures and programs that have the main objective of promoting the well-being of rural individuals.
Therefore, in order to alleviate these problems and enhance the livelihoods opportunities of rural individuals, there have been formulations of measures and programs that have the main objective of promoting the well-being of rural individuals.
Another biggest social evil in our community is the Dowry System. The dowry system in India refers to the durable goods, cash, and real or movable property that the bride’s family gives to the groom, his parents, and his relatives as a condition of the marriage.
This year Rays of Peace were focused on educating and empowering both men and women on this very practice. We believe that creating awareness was a continuous process. People should take a vow to see that no one in their families took dowry. The prevalence of dowry was more to with sexism in society. Although all religions discouraged dowry, it was still prevalent. Dowry had no barriers. Both the rich and the poor gave dowry. Money, which would have been used for productive purposes such as the education of children, was saved to be given as dowry for marriages. Hence the education of children suffered. In some families, people ate less to save money for dowry and this impacted their health. Even after giving dowry, there was no guarantee for parents that their daughters would live happily.
This year we could conduct 30 awareness programs across 8 cities in India with over 2000 in attendance with a focus to create awareness on this practice. 342 individuals have taken an oath to not entertain dowry in their families.