115 women volunteers for Nirbhaya Project

Kochi: The district will soon have specially trained ‘Nirbhaya’ volunteers to make women feel secure. As part of the pilot project of Nirbhaya to be implemented in Ernakulam, 115 women have been selected as volunteers who will serve as a support system to ensure the safety of women in the district. The volunteers were selected after an interview and they were given a three-day training.

It was Deputy Commissioner of Police R. Nisanthini and a team of women representatives who selected the volunteers. The passing out of the volunteers’ team will be held on August 1.

“These volunteers will focus on the rehabilitation of victims, ensure legal assistance to them and make them feel comfortable with the police. They will not have any policing power. Instead, the team will have a victim-oriented approach,” the DCP said.

Though the volunteers will not be provided any honorarium, they will be given TA and DA apart from uniform and identity card. Women in the age group of 25 – 55 have been recruited for the project which is expected to prevent exploitation and other crimes against women and children to a great extent.

“We got an encouraging response from women across the district to be the volunteers of Nirbhaya, despite the lack of attractive salary or other perks. Most of the women who appeared for the interview told us that they wanted to be part of a project which would help prevent atrocities against women,” said Jyothi Narayanan of Sthreevedi, who was on the interview panel. 

The 115-member team will be divided into small groups with 10 or 12 members and will be deployed in different regions. These volunteers can intervene in women’s issues and also can go for door-to-door campaigns in their respective regions, meeting women, children and senior members.

In the later phase, the volunteers will set up Nirbhaya clubs in educational institutions to teach self-defence measures to girls and organise classes for boys on the need to respect women.