Raise 300 boys in India to be gender-equitable

We appreciate your continued support and contribution to ECF’s Action for Equality (AfE) programme committed to raising Gender Equitable Boys in Pune, India. It is because of this constant support that ECF engages adolescent boys across 20 communities in Pune.

At ECF, between June 2019 - August 2019, we have launched Cycle 24 of our Foundation programme and Leadership Programme (15-week intervention)

During this period: 

AfE Foundation Programme (FP): Our AfE mentors have mobilised and enrolled 262 participants across 20 communities in Pune. These participants will graduate in September for the second stage of the AfE programme. 

AfE Leadership Programme (LP): A total of 131 participants were enrolled for the leadership programme from 18 communities in Pune. They will graduate as leaders in the month of September. 

Some programme highlights during this period were:

Addition and removal of communities: In Cycle 24 we have successfully engaged with 20 communities in Pune. We feel happy to announce that we have recently partnered with Ummeed. With their help we have launched our intervention in a new community called Vadgaon Budruk in Pune.We have discontinued our intervention in Bibwewadi community from this cycle as the number of participants has constantly been declining in this community. 

Duration for the Leadership Programme: In the last quarter we had noted a significant decline in the attendance of participants in the Leadership Programme. Hence we held consultation meetings with the participants and the alumni to understand the reasons for this. It was noted that the participants dropped out because of exams and festivals. Some participants also found the sessions to be content heavy and the 30-week engagement to be tedious. Therefore, considering the feedback we decided to decrease the duration of the intervention to 15 weeks. We also plan to review the curriculum to ensure that the modules are accessible. 

As part of the team development, we have been conducting regular mentor training for mentors every week.  We will conduct our intensive team training for all staff in the next quarter where we will invite an external resource person to deliver sessions on various topics related to Gender. 

Focus group discussions (FGD) with girls: We have been trying various strategies to include the voices of girls in our programmes and to normalise interactions between girls and boys. During this cycle we invited adolescent girls to FGDs with our participants to discuss gender-related issues faced by women and girls in the community. Many girls talked about the negative effects of street sexual harassment on their lives and boys were able to hear first hand how girls get pulled out of school as their parents fear for their safety. This experience reinforced our participant’s zeal to take action against gender-based violence.

Action Events: From this cycle our Leadership Programme participants will conduct 4 action events in their respective communities. The Leadership Programme participants have decided to perform street plays on the issue of ‘Street Sexual Harassment’. The action event is ongoing in all the 18 communities. Our Foundation programme action events will begin in the month of September. The topic decided by our participants is gender-based discrimination. We will provide an update on this in the next report. 

Big, Meet and Greet (BMG) event: We will be hosting our BMG for Cycle 24 in September, at the end of the Leadership Programme. From this cycle on we have decided to discontinue BMG events for the Foundation and Action Programmes.

As of August 2019, with your support, ECF has been able to successfully reach out to and enrol 5339 boys to Action for Equality programme. A total of 3037 adolescent boys have graduated and pledged to become allies with women to support gender-equality in their communities. These numbers will be updated in the month of September after the completion of Cycle 24. 

We thank you for your contribution and supporting our mission, to raise every boy in India to be Gender Equitable.

Action for Equality Progress Update March 2019 - May 2019

Thank you for your continued support and contribution to ECF’s Action for Equality (AfE) programme committed to raise Gender Equitable Boys in Pune, India. It is because of the constant support that now ECF engages with 20 communities in Pune.

At ECF, between March 2019 - May 2019, we have completed cycle 23 of AfE Action Programme (AP) and AfE Leadership Programme (LP).

During this period:

• AfE Action Programme (AP): The second stage of our AfE programme, AfE Action Programme (15 weeks intervention) has been completed.188 boys enrolled and  138 graduated from the programme in 20 communities around Pune.

• AfE Leadership Programme (LP): Cycle 23 of AfE Leadership Programme (LP) has also been completed (30 week intervention). Out of the 172 boys who enrolled in the programme, 94 graduated in 18 communities around Pune.

Few of the key programme highlights during this period were:

1) Action Events: The Action event is an opportunity for boys to showcase what they have learnt in front a public audience. 

The participants in the Action Programme mapped all the tasks that the male members and female members in the household undertake in a 24 hour timeframe and demonstrated how women bear the disproportionate responsibility of household chores.

In the Leadership Programme, the participants focused on challenging street sexual harassment in their communities. They undertook a community mapping exercise to map 'unsafe' areas within the community and had one on one conversations with women about why they feel unsafe in these spaces. The boys created wall paintings along with the women, they pasted charts on the walls and conducted a ‘Chalk the Walk’ campaign where they chalked messages against street sexual harassment on public walkways.

2) Engaging with the new communities: We continued our engagement with two new communities during cycle 23. These communities are Jai Bhawani Nagar and Laxminagar.

3) Big Meet and Greet (BMG) Events:

• The objectives of the BMG event are
• To facilitate networking amongst programme graduates from different communities and to help the boys collectively brainstorm on social issues such as harassment and unequal division of work.
• To engage boys in discussions and activities so that they can critically reflect on how they can contribute to creating safe spaces for women within schools and communities.
• To motivate boys to continue participating in Action for Equality program

• The AP-BMG event was held on the 5th May 2019. 82 boys participated in this event. The topic of discussion during this event was ‘Let's create safe spaces,’ and the boys were encouraged to suggest actions which would help combat unsafe spaces.

• The LP-BMG event was held on the 12th May 2019. 63 boys participated in this event. Our leadership participants shared multiple ideas on the topic ‘It’s not okay to harass girls within school premises’ and on the need to make sure that they have access to safe spaces. They also discussed how they could contribute to creating safe spaces for women.                                                                                              

4) Intensive Team Training (ITT)

ECF conducts an Intensive Team Training workshop with all the members of the team at the end of every 15 week cycle. The objective of the ITT is to build knowledge and skills within the team on issues and themes in gender and gender-based violence.

• This training workshop took place from the 13th - 16th May 2019. The theme for training was ‘Men and Masculinities’. The sessions included discussions on topics such as ‘Gender in my life’ and ‘Power walk’, through which team members were able to reflect the impact that the social norms have had upon them as individuals.

• Other activities included “Looking Back and Look Forward” through which the team reflected upon its achievements from the previous year and identified major milestones for the next year.

• ECF hosted Mr. Satish Kumar Singh from CHSJ for the three-day training. He is a leading expert on gender and masculinities in India and has been working on this issue for over 30 years.

• All the members attended the training workshop to gain insights on the topic, question the form of masculinity within themselves and work collectively towards changing the same in a positive manner.

5) Longitudinal Study

ECF's Research Development and Evaluation team launched a research study in 2018 to understand the sustainability of the outcome beyond the end of the programme. The first stage of the study demonstrated that the three stage programme serves to shift participants attitudes on gender further along the gender equality spectrum. 

The study also compared a sample of participants who had dropped after the first stage of the programme to a sample of participants who completed all three stages. The participants who completed all the three stage demonstrated more equitable gender attitudes. 

As of May 2019, together with your support, ECF has been able to successfully reach out and enroll 5339 boys to Action for Equality programme. A total of 3037 adolescent boys have graduated and pledged to become allies with women to support gender equality in the communities.

We thank you for your contribution and supporting our mission, to raise every boy in India to be Gender Equitable.