Parents urged to take good care of their girl child’s nutrition

Islamabad
Teachers on Monday urged parents to take good care of the nutrition of their girl child and provide them stress free environment in the homes so that they can excel in their lives.
They were talking to ‘The News’ at an event organised by Aurat Foundation in collaboration with Garden of Hope to commemorate World Teachers Day on October 5.
“I am teaching since more than a decade and I have seen many girls who come to school without breakfast mostly because they are expected to prepare breakfast for themselves and others. Such girls fail to utilise their capabilities and some even faint in the school,” said Naheed Shafiq, subject specialist Biology of Government Girl’s Higher Secondary School No 2, Rawalpindi.
She also urged parents to keep an eye on the internet use of their children. “Only way is that if parents remain involved in the activities of their children. It is the responsibility of both parents. If mother is not educated, father should take the responsibility to discuss such issues with their daughters,” she said while talking about the issues faced by teenage girls.
Senior Secondary School Teacher, Rehana Nadeem, termed early marriage a major hurdle in the way of girl empowerment. “Recently, one of my students in class five got married. A big number of students are married in metric and discontinue their studies. The girl who topped intermediate exams in our school is also married and has a child,” said Rehana, suggesting parents to wait till
girls turn 18 so that they become able to take this responsibility.
Elementary school teacher, Asiya Batool, asked parents to make their home environment violence free especially free of verbal disputes that greatly affects the personalities of their children. “Majority of girls never discusses that with their parents but they tell their teachers of the exchange of bad words in their homes between father and mother or mother and in-laws. While exchanging such words, we ignore the impact it will have on our children. I appeal all parents to gove stress free environment to their children,” she said.
On October 5, 2015, World Teachers' Day is celebrated in more than 100 countries world-wide and was established by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1994 to celebrate the role of teachers in society. The day is celebrated around the world as an opportunity to draw public attention to the important role of teachers in our local communities and to ensure that the needs of future generations will continue to be met by teachers.
The day was celebrated at the Government Girl’s Higher Secondary School No.2, Rawalpindi with an event, which was a part of of series of activities designed for a campaign “Asian Girl Campaign – Empower Girls; Empower the world”. The goal of this campaign is to challenge the stereotypes of Asian girls, help girl children of abuse escape violence and oppression as well as raising awareness of sex trafficking and unrealistic stereotypes of young Asian girls. The purpose of this campaign is to spread the message to invest in girls and girl’s education.
Aurat Foundation celebrated the day with students and teachers with an objective to raise awareness on girl child rights among teachers and students.
On this occasion, the rights of girl child were shared with the participants. It was emphasized by the speaker from Rozan, Misbah Khalid that as a treaty of Child Rights Convention, its government duty to abide by the convention and ensure that policies and laws related to children are in line with the convention.
At the end of the day the butterfly bands were distributed among girls as a symbol of solidarity, leadership, equality, participation and empowerment.