By Anuradha Chatterji | Director, Resource Development
Program Update
June 2017 - August 2017
It’s My Body: Advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of Adolescent Girls through Sports (A community-based program led by CREA and co-implemented with 12 partner CBOs* in Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh).
The period of June to August 2017 has been a great learning period for CREA and its partner organisations. During this period, 1500 adolescent girls who became part of the It’s My Body programme last year, completed the 10 month-long curriculum based training. Since 2012, 7500 girls have completed the 10 month-long curriculum based training. During this period, CREA had also organised the third SELF Academy for young girls from Uttar Pradesh.
SELF Academy 2017
SELF(Sports, Empowerment, Leadership and Freedom) Academy is a 10-day long residential program to enable young girls to be skilled, self-confident and self-reliant so that they can make their own decisions related to their bodies, health, career and lives. It is a residential leadership and skills-building academy for young girls that uses sports, art, media and technology to provide them an exposure to the non-conventional skills.
The Academy was organised from 1-10 July 2017 in Delhi by CREA and its four partner community-based organisations from Uttar Pradesh (Sakar, Bareilly; Mahila Swarozgar Samiti, Varanasi; Gramonnati Sansthan, Mahoba; and Veerangana Mahila Vikas Manch, Jhansi). 39 young adolescent girls between the age group of 15-18 years from Uttar Pradesh attended this academy.
Obtaining consent and approval from the familiesof the girls who participated in the program was a necessary and very important step in this process. It was the first time that all 39 young girls who participated in the academy had travelled and stayed away from their homes for 10 days. The Academy was attended by girls from Muslim, Dalit, SC and ST communities in India. The participants shared this was the first time that they had stayed together with girls from all communities.
The Academy provided a dedicated space to directly engage and empower these girls, especially on traditionally difficult areas to address such as self-esteem, sexuality, gender, reproductive health, and women’s rights. It also provided a range of opportunities for skills and knowledge building that can help girls realise their aspirations and secure better opportunities to improve their lives such as sports (football); digital literacy and security; videography and film making; comics and writing; spoken English and communication; rural journalism; and theatre and storytelling. They conceptualised, shot films and developed comics on a range of issues like education, restriction on playing football, violence against women and girls, disability, health and sanitation.
“You can search anything on internet! I searched and saw my state and my district! I even searched the world’s biggest snake Anaconda! It was a huge snake!” – A participant from Sakar, Bareilly District expressed her excitement in the digital literacy class.
One of the highlights of the academy was the heritage walk to Qutub Minar. This walk was facilitated by Darwesh, a Delhi based organisation led by women. During this heritage walk the histrory of Qutab Minar was shared from a feminist perspective. It was an overwhelming experience for all the girls.
All the sessions at this SELF academy were facilitated by young women. They acted as role models for the participants to get inspired and believe that if given the opportunity and support, women/girls can become experts even in their non-conventional roles.
The graduation ceremony of the academy was held on 10 July 2017. The closing ceremony was planned, organised, led and completely facilitated by the girls themselves. Local civil society organisations, adolescent girls from similar programmes, heads of the partner organisations attended the ceremony. The ceremony included football tournament, plays, speeches, exhibition of the comics and art created by the participants at the SELF Academy.
Way Forward
Follow up and long–term engagement: The experience of IMB has shown the importance of a long term engagament of girls - which has actually paved the way for SELF Academy. Therefore, a prolonged strategy of intervention needs to be strengthened for SELF Academy too to ensure that the learnings and experience of the academy is useful for the girls. CREA is exploring the possibility of designing a plan to develop and incorporate a mentoring program for a select cohort of young girl leaders in the SELF Academy which will ensure quality input in knowledge and skills-building, mentoring and leadership development over a long period of time.
*List of IMB partners:
Bihar:
Jharkhand:
Uttar Pradesh:
By Anuradha Chatterji | Director, Resource Devlopment
By Anuradha Chatterji | Director, Resource Development
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