Kishori (meaning adolescent girl) Help Desk is the unique space for adolescent girls & their parents to get guidance and support on various issues pertaining to their growing up years and the pathways they choose in life. Located at CLF offices, Help Desk addresses the gap between educational & career aspirations among adolescent girls and guides them through a healthy passage to adulthood.
Trained counsellors offer complete guidance and career counselling to adolescent girls with a scientific approach using John Holland’s RIASEC Test (psychometric analysis of understanding aptitude & personality types as Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional) . Moreover, girls are guided and linked to various schemes and scholarship and guided about available courses with the help of a detailed compendium, especially designed for the project.
Initiated in July 2022, a total of 12 Kishori Help Desks have been institutionalised so far in Godda Sadar and Nala blocks, that have together offered counselling to more than 650 adolescent girls.
A study conducted by PCI India in 2021 under Project Umang revealed that there is a huge disparity between educational and career aspirations of adolescent girls. While girls aimed higher in terms of their career, most did not have matching educational aspirations. A key reason identified for this mismatch was lack of mentoring and career guidance. While both mothers and their adolescent daughters give priority to studies, there is telling story when aspirations for 65% of mother-daughter pair did not match.
