Your cart is currently empty!
Category: Social Transformation
Skill Development Program for Transgender
Understanding the problems still prevalent in transgender community, Founder President of Pune’s leading NGO, Mrs. Usha Kakade felt the need to
do something for this most neglected community. With this thought and vision, Gravittus Foundation and Symbiosis Skills & Professional University
together have started this initiative of offering skill-based programs to the transgender community.“ The objective of this program is to bring the transgender community into the mainstream of society and provide them opportunities for self-employment. This project includes certification programs in Tailoring, Sanitary Pad Making, beauty services, herbal products etc.
Acharya Mahamandaleshwar of kinnar akhada and Actress, Laxmi Narayan Tripathi was also present for the launch program and blessed this innovative Gravittus Foundation and Symbiosis ‘Prism Project’. For the first time in India an initiative of this kind to offer skill development courses for transgender community for making them successful entrepreneurs.”
Symbiosis Skills & Professional University and Gravittus Foundation join hands for first of its kind skill development program for Transgenders
Symbiosis Skills & Professional University is Maharashtra’s first skill development university established with a mission of skilling youth of all age groups & socio-economic backgrounds with an objective of making them employable and self- employable. In the past 12+ years, thousands of students have successfully completed various courses from Symbiosis Skills & Professional University’s Community College and become self-reliant.
Along with – Gravittus Foundation which believes that positive social change is a culmination of the strengthening empowerment of people. Gravittus Foundation is dedicated to imparting education, instruction, and training in different branches of learning. With this thought and vision, Symbiosis Skills & Professional University and Gravittus Foundation together have started this initiative of offering skill-based programs to the transgender community. The objective of this program is to bring the transgender community into the mainstream of society and provide them opportunities for self-employment. This project includes certification programs in Tailoring, Sanitary Pad making, beauty services, herbal products etc. The success of this project will be a great milestone in this mission to provide dignified livelihood to disadvantaged groups.
For the first time in India an initiative of this kind to offer skill development courses for transgender community for making them successful entrepreneurs. Dr. Swati Mujumdar, Pro-Chancellor Symbiosis Skills & Professional University emphasized the need for inclusive education and highlighted that for the first time in India, a skill university will be imparting especially designed programs for the transgender community. She said that we have created a unique model for promoting entrepreneurship by collaborating with the industry to buy the products prepared by the students. We are happy that we are able to give back to the society and contribute towards inclusive growth of the community.”
On this occasion, Mrs. Usha Kakade is the Chairperson and Managing Director of Gravittus Corp. said “We firmly believe that every individual has a right to live a dignified life. Our endeavor is to ensure that we can reach as many people as possible and help them realize their dreams and lead the life with respect. We have moved a step ahead and have tied up with a hospital to buy the products produced by the students. This will help them kick start the things from day one to become self-dependent and live a dignified life. We would like to thank Laxmi Narayan Tripathi for coming together to facilitate this process and doing so much work for the community.”
“I am glad and thankful to Symbiosis and Gravittus Foundation for such a thoughtful initiative. It is my privilege that I could be instrumental in doing something so nice which is going to help our people. I wish this project a grand success.” said Laxmi Narayan Tripathi.
UNICEF Collaboration with Gravittus Foundation
Gravittus Foundation in association with UNICEF, India organized Roundtable Conference on 10th October 2019 on the Rights of the Child for Entertainment Industry People. so that, we must look ahead to the future of childhood and commit to fulfill the rights of every child, now, and for generations to come.
Important persons from entertainment industry participated in the conference namely, Padmini Kolhapure, Zareen Khan, Sonali Kulkarni,
Mrunal Kulkarni, Gracey Singh; and they also shared the relevance of the serious subject. It was truly motivational experience for all of us. Those
experiences will be following up with necessary action plan to reduce child labour in entertainment industry. Rajeshwari Chandrashekhar, Chief
of Field Office, UNICEF and Swati Mohapatra, Communication Specialist, UNICEF was present.“ Following the conference, Gravittus Foundation in collaboration with UNICEF started working with celebrities. On the theme of ‘Ending Violence Against Children’, noted Marathi Actor & Director Subodh Bhave wrote and created awareness through his social media platforms. ActressPadmini Kolhapure also created awareness on the similar theme as well as
on Covid Appropriate Behaviour importance.”
UDNE DO” Trailer Launch
Gravittus Foundation in association with Humaramovie Productions, Aarti Bagdi as a Director and Usha Kakade as a Producer launched trailer of social awareness short film called ‘Udne Do’. With the rise in child abuse cases seen in many schools across the country, ‘Gravittus Foundation’ feel the importance of educating the small children on child abuse, both recognition and prevention. Ongoing project called ‘Safe Touch Unsafe Touch’ is already creating awareness on this issue and to raise its efficiency on wider platform, this film was launched.
“ Mrs. Amruta Fadnavis, Vice President, Axis Bank; Mrs. Pankaja Mundhe, Minister,
Women & Child Development, Maharashtra alongwith Veteran Actress Revathy and
Fashion Designer Manish Malhotra with Usha Kakade were the dignitaries present
for the trailer launch program. over Pune and Pimpri-chinchwad area by 2019.”
Safe Touch and Unsafe Touch Project
ACHIEVED MILESTONE
Our Gravittus Foundation’s most important ‘Good Touch Bad Touch’ (Safe and Unsafe Touch) achieved Milestone today; As we crossed more than 4 Lakh students under this project. It’s an achievement today as we completed 4,04,957 students from 1,095 schools under the guidance of our Gravittus Foundation’s Founder President, Usha Kakade.
Good Touch Bad Touch project objective is to spread awareness amongst school children of Pre-primary, Primary and Secondary children regarding the possible threats of child sexual abuse, recognize the incidences of unwanted touch, learn to prevent themselves and report such behaviour to their safe spaces. It is to understand issues related to the security of these children with the respective subject and act as a referral system. We are having an expert team of counsellors and coordinators who execute the project. 45 min awareness session use to take place with the respective school children group.
Gravittus Foundation’s main focus is on most vulnerable group of society and they are women and children. Hence foundation identified the most sensitive issue of the society as well. Primary focus of foundation was on health of women and children. The preventive approach is mostly used in the projects. Foundation, after two to three years of comprehensive study about the issue of child sex abuse, finally came out with decision of directly working with school children. In the view of “Prevention is always better than cure”, foundation finalized its strategy to create awareness at mass level in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad area. The medium to reach out to these children identified by the foundation was public and private schools. Sufficient period of two to three years of study from secondary sources helped the foundation to draw out the requirements that create real benefits.
“ Objective of the project is to spread the awareness related to Safe touch – Unsafe touch amongst school children studying from Nursery to 8th std. and to understand issues related to the security of these children with the respective subject and act as a referral system. This project launched on 6th January 2017 with the hands of our President Mrs. Usha Kakade.”
Safe Touch and Unsafe Touch is an important issue for every Children right from Childhood to the onstage of Teenage
Under this project, we are creating awareness amongst children through various methods and understanding language according to their age-group. We are conducting sessions with respect to Preprimary, Primary and Secondary section.For this project, our team searched for the private schools as well as for the resource persons who are experts in this subject. Initially we were conducting this project with private and public schools of PMC and PCMC and now with Pune Zilla Parishad schools. Girls and Boys who express their experiences to our experts’ team, then our team act as a referral agency. And, we refer them to Child line or any other NGO working on this delicate issue.
SUMMARY :
Gravittus Foundation believes that a society should reside on peace and justice. Thus to promote peaceful and inclusive society for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and to build effective accountable and inclusive institution at all levels, Gravittus Foundation found it essential to educate all at grass root level itself. Hence organized various programs for school going children explaining the term of end abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children. Sustainable development goals targets analogical goal in terms of stabilizing the awareness in society. Gravittus Foundation successfully carried this program under the name “Safe Touch Unsafe Touch”.
National Disable Day Program
This event provided a platform for the handicapped children to develop their skills and talents in sports, reducing the inequality that exists between the handicapped and non-handicapped children in our society. Along with this activity, children showing the placards with traffic awareness slogans at various chowk.
