Asmita Resource Centre For Women - Cultural Context

Cultural Context

Asmita plays an important role in a wider social context: with other NGOs, the center seeks to redress social issues that have a great impact on India’s female and youth populations. Issues of particular interest include addressing the disparity between illiteracy rates of young men and women, the drop-out trend in urban areas that particularly affects young women, and the lack of economic opportunity faced by many Indian women and urban residents. Indian women have the lowest literacy rates in Asia. In a 1991 survey, less than 40 percent of the 330 million women aged 7 and older were literate. Literacy plays a much bigger role than simply being able to read or not. Literacy has been correlated with high levels of fertility, mortality poor nutritional status, low earning potential and little autonomy.

This work is plagued by a cultural, economic, and educational tradition that reinforces patriarchal attitudes. Women’s roles are traditionally inferior. As women gain increasing access to education and economic opportunities, however, centers like Asmita gain important local support that creates a haven within a society that, facing significant social difficulties, is ill-equipped to deal with social change. Difficulties include the engrained structural makeup of the Indian workforce and the design of the educational system. Youth make up 22% of India’s population (World’s Youth 106) and between 10 and 33% of the Indian workforce in certain industries (WY 120). Centers like Asmita give children opportunities for education and growth while also providing supportive atmospheres that hope to keep children from being exploited in the child labor market.