Empowering the Young Minds with Life Skills: Impact of Life Skills Education Programme at Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), Bhubaneswar, Odisha

Abstract

Ever since WHO made a strong pitch for the inclusion of Life Skills Education for adolescents there has been a continuous growth in the interest among academicians and psychologists in the field. Tribal communities in India have traditionally been one of the most economically and socially deprived sections of the society. While there have been numerous programmes for the betterment of tribal communities by the Central and various State Governments, the gap between the desired outcomes and actual outcomes has always existed. In the field of Life Skills Education the positive role of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences has been very effective for the tribal girls. With the support of UNFPA, KISS has been implementing a project on “Empowering young people with life skills” through Life Skills Education (LSE) based Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health to enable them to deal with the demands and challenges in their life effectively. This programme is implemented through a multi- pronged strategy with not only course transaction but also counselling and peer education. This paper is an attempt to study the impact of the Life Skills Education Programme organised by the institute for adolescent Tribal Girls. The researcher has conducted a survey of 300 respondents who had attended this programme and their responses have been noted through a questionnaire prepared by the researcher. The researcher also had one to one unstructured interviews and some focus group discussions to collect data for qualitative analysis .This paper is a primary analysis of the findings of the survey.