Education is the only weapon to remove gender imbalance and the Patel Community is on the mission to empower girls.
By: Dhara Patel
There are roughly 5 million Patel living in Gujarat, India. They are known for their unity and their initiative for social development.
The family name, “Patel” is one of the most commonly used in the world and there are certain interesting facts about the Patel community.
* “Patel” is one of the most commonly used surnames in India, the UK, and the USA.
* There are about 1,000,000 Patel’s living in the UK.
* Every tenth person of Indian-origin in the USA is a Gujarati with “Patel” as a family name.
* Almost 15% of Indian and 70% of Gujarati business houses are owned by “Patel’s”.
Indian Parents prefer not to have girls as children as they have to spend a lot of money on the girl’s marriage and post marriage traditions.
This is the reason parents spend less on education and save their money instead for all of these traditions and to feed hundreds of guests. No one can raise a voice against it as it is tradition.
Finally, two reputed Organizations of the Patel Community have stepped ahead to bring gender balance to the community. They have begun to educate people on not spending so much money on weddings. Rich people from the community have started to follow this tradition of simpler marriages so they can be used as an example.
Gender imbalance creates problems for boys of the community to get married. It’s high time to think about the issue and the Patel community has initiated this campaign.
Patel community emphasizes girl’s education as well as to demolish domestic violence and to create a healthy society where men and women can both make financial decisions.
Today both the Organization Vishv umiya Foundation and Sardardham run free classes for girls who want to take a Government exam and encourage them to be Financially independent. This has created an example for society.
Written by Dhara Patel
Dhara is a journalist from Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
Public relations is her passion and she mostly writes on social issues.
