We have an opportunity to work on Girls issues of child marriage, child trafficking, promote secondary education and Job Oriented Vocational Training (JOVT) in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana through an initiative called 'Girls Advocacy Alliance Programme (GAP)' with the collaboration of Mahita and Plan International in Andhra Pradesh (Kurnool District) Telangana (Mahabnagar District) The programme will closely work with communities; CSOs, Governments and Private sector in bring the desired change for the sake of girl children.

Goal of the GAA: Equal Rights and opportunities for Girls and young women in Andhra Pradesh and Telaganna states of India.

About the Girls Advocacy Programme: The Girls Advocacy Alliance programme is global initiative of Plan International, Plan Netherlands, Terre Des Hommes, and Defence for Children ECPAT Netherlands. It is aimed at contributing towards Equal Rights and opportunities to girls and young women and inclusive economic growth in ten countries, spread across Asia and Africa region. The programme lays emphasis on the elimination of Violence against Girl and young women and their economic exclusion as policy priorities.

We have participated in State Level launching Program of Girls Advocacy Alliance on 10th December, 2016 at CESS Auditorium, Begumpet, at Hyderabad. The Plan International country and state officers, dignitaries and NGOs were participated for launching program.

In this program they explained how best we work for this project to reach target group of girl children.

Mahabubnagar-GAA: Girls Advocacy Alliance program was launched by Mahabubnagar District collector Shri. Ronald Rose garu on 19th December, 2017 at Mahabubnagar. The collector garu released the posters of the advocacy program, BIRDS Executive Director Paul Raja Rao garu and Mahitha team members Sudharsan garu and Aliya Kathoon garu also participated in this launching program.

We have organized meeting with 4 district NGOs of Mahabubnagar region at Mahabubnagar. 45 NGO persons participated from 30 NGOs for this meeting. Our Executive Director Paul Raja Rao garu explained about this project to the participants, we are going to work for the issues of girl children in our project areas with the support of Mahitha and Plan International through advocacy mode. We can see many issues of girl children in our areas like, Drop outs, Child Marriages, Girl trafficking, Health & Hygiene, girl's participation and protection issues. We overcome these some issues through advocacy mode by this GAA project.
Sudharsan state coordinator GAA program, has explained, that the Mahabubnagar is the largest district in Telangana and has low literacy percentage especially for girl children for many reasons. We have to bring awareness to the community and girl children to overcome girl's issues. In this year we have identified high ratio of child marriages in this district.

Kurnool: In connection to this programme we have conducted the Formation of NGOs/ network/ CSOs for at for programme entry meeting at District level. We have conducted the one Meeting at Kurnool with NGOs/CSOs Network at Kurnool with collaboration of Mahita and BIRDS in the Kurnool District.

During the Programme 30 NGOs and CSOs, Mahita Representatives (Sri. Gode Prasad Garu and Smt. Rubeena Garu and BIRDS ED V. Paul Raja Rao garu) participated and facilitated in the meeting process. BIRDS- ED Paul Sir was hosted the programme and warm welcoming to the participants for the GAA Programme in the Kurnool Dist. G.Prasad Garu from Mahita has explained about the importance of the GAA Programme initiation in the Kurnool District and mainly focusing on the Grils and young women in the districts. Probed the Girls issues in the district with participants like child Marriages, Girl child trafficking and child labour issues in the District. BIRDS ED Paul Sir has informed the priorities of the Girl child issues in the Districts. Frequent issues were raised from the participants with the Support of the Mahita team members.

• Main issues were raised was frequent incidences was occurred in the Adoni Division Area for Child marriages and child trafficking.
• Some of the participants were expressed their views on the Girl Child Issues like there is no proper sanitation like Toilets and water facilities for girl child and they felt that in guilty and insecure for their continuation of the education in the ground level.
• Lack of Awareness for Community members on the importance of the Girl Child Education in the Society.
• No proper support from the State government related to the Girl Child Issues.
• In Kurnool District Migration was high in the Rural Areas in that Situation we have seen that dropout rate was high in the Rural Areas.
• We need to the Strengthen the System and Committee for prevention of Child Marriages and child trafficking in the Society.
• Awareness Campaign needs on Child Related Acts in the form of Street play, Kalajathas, IEC Material and Display in the Video in the rural areas.