ON ‘THIS INTERNATIONAL LITERACY’ DAY, LET US TELL YOU SOME UNKNOWN FACTS ABOUT OUR WORLD BELIEFS!

By Shivangi Chawla

International Literacy Day is celebrated on 8 september every year . This date was declared international literacy day by UNESCO on 26 October 1966 at 14th session of UNESCO’s General conference. It was celebrated for the first time in 1967. Its aim is to highlight the importance of literacy to individuals, communities and societies. Celebrations take place in several countries. As per UNESCO, 773 million adults and young people around the world still lack basic literacy skills. Given how the near-global lockdown caused by Covid-19 has disrupted education, “affecting more than 91% of students and 99% of teachers”, UNESCO announced the theme for International Literacy Day 2020 as “literacy teaching and learning in the COVID-19 crisis and beyond”.

Let’s talk about some Myths and Taboos that are still followed in 21 century and some recent incidents in which people killed humanity .

In rural areas, many people believe that educating woman and girl child is not necessary because of they think that woman are born to manage household and to take care of their family before and even after marriage. On Monday, National Statistical Office (NSO) released the data for 2017-18 on state wise literacy rate in the country for all aged 7 or above . As per NSO ,India’s average literacy rate is 77.7 %. Many girls are asked to drop out of school to get married in between their studies and many girls are not even send to school.

Another big taboo in our society is Menstruation , However it has always been surrounded by taboos that exclude woman from many Socio -cultural taboos . In India this topic is a taboo until date . Woman on periods are not allowed to enter the kitchen, temples and are considered as impure .There is a need to follow a strategic approach in combating these issues . Periods camps are required to be initiated to tell these people that menstruation is not a taboo but a natural unique phenomenon. Education on menstrual hygiene is also very important for girls to protect themselves from various skin infections.

Recently we have seen an incident in which a woman was abusing a woman just because she was wearing sportswear while working out in bengaluru park. Can you believe this ? Every one have a right to choose their style of living and everyone can wear what they want to. If a woman is behaving like this so just imagine how man will react over this. Woman need to support each other and not to drag them down in public. This Incident happened with Samyuktha Hegde, a 22-year old actor in the South Indian film industry, Nobody came to help her but everyone came to bully her along with the woman who was abusing Samyuktha. Hegde has alleged that Congress leader Kavitha Reddy “tried to hit” her. She was feeling helpless that’s why she made a live video on instagram to publicly expose the woman. I still don’t believe how can educated people do such things.

Few days back an incident took place in Kerala where some local people feed a pregnant elephant with a pineapple filled with crackers and then she had a blast in her stomach after eating that pineapple and she and her baby died. How cruel these people can be ?Again the same question arrives that The innocent elephant was not educated enough to understand what is right for her or not but we people are educated and we know the consequences and the impact of crackers in her stomach , so what’s the use of our education in our lives , if we tend to do such terrible things ? Do we all have lost humanity ?

On conclusion a note, I would like to say that education is very important for everyone . We should not stop anyone from getting education and knowledge . It’s everyone’s right to be educated. Along with education one should be aware of the morals , values and ethics of humanity. If you are educated but don’t know how to behave and respect others than your education is pointless. Everyone is in need of love and respect. Let’s all take a pledge on this International Literacy Rate that we all will make our world more literate and spread love everywhere .

BE KIND !