Empower Girls in India Through Sports

Program Update

(June-August, 2016)

It’s My Body

Advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of Adolescent Girls through Sports

The period from June- August 2016 was filled with lots of excitement. The programme focused on strengthening capacities of its own team, of the trainers from partner CBOs and of 60 girl leaders who participate in IMB programme through a learning visit (June 2016) and a leadership camp (July 2016). It further included the first state level advocacy event on 23 August 2016 led and facilitated by the girls themselves in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, co-organised with the five partner CBOs from U.P.

The Learning Visit, organised in Delhi from 13-17 June brought together 22 trainers from 12 partner CBOs and six CREA team members to visit, exchange and learn from other organisations, activists and groups on issues of collectivisation of adolescent girls, SRH policies for young people, community mobilisation and education through football and on role of young people in advocacy. As a part of this visit, the trainers visited CEQUIN and learnt from their experience of engaging with girls from minority communities using the medium of football and train them on issues related to gender, health and rights. The trainers also got oriented on the organisation’s holistic strategy of engaging with the community (parents, mothers, adolescent girls and young boys). In addition to this, interactive sessions were organised between resource persons (from Sama Resource Group for Women and Health and The YP Foundation and IMB trainers on issues around collectivisation, policy level advocacy and ways of engaging youth in advocacy.

 “Even though we had some broad knowledge around young people and health, we had no idea about the specificities, especially the ARSH clinic and the provisions of the RKSK. This session has really added to our knowledge and perspective base.”– Trainer, Gaurav Grameen Mahila Vikas Manch (Patna, Bihar).

“In our work with adolescents, we also encounter so many young people articulating the issues in their community and the potential to be leaders. As part of our advocacy- related work, we have just started working with them and when we look at these community leaders from YP, it gives us confidence that our girls can also become leaders like them.” – Trainer, Gramonnati Sansthan (Mahoba, Uttar Pradesh).

Two Leadership Development Camps (The camp design, content and methodology has been developed by Dream a Dream, Bangalore) were organised with 60 young girl leaders from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh during this quarter. A selected cohort of 60 young girl leaders from the third batch of IMB participated in the five day residential camps. The camp took them on a journey of self-reflection and provided them with a safe space to explore their strengths, talk about their struggles and think of a plan to achieve their dreams and aspirations.

“This is the first time I sat in a train and came this far. I am quite excited to learn new things.”­ Adolescent girl, Mahila Swarozgar Samiti (Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh).

“I like to dance but I stopped dancing as my parents often object to it. But after this camp, I will find a way of convincing them and will make sure that I continue to do things which I like.” – Adolescent girl, Sakar (Bareily, Uttar Pradesh).

During this period, CREA also constituted its internal Ethics Review Committee (ERC) to provide external oversight on research and other forms of data collection undertaken as part of the community based programmes and to ensure that robust ethical standards and practices underpin evidence generation by CREA. The first meeting of the ERC was held on 3 June 2016 in New Delhi. CREA shared the endline study design and methodology for the It’s My Body programme and the study design for the situational analysis and baseline study being planned for the Meri Panchayat Meri Shakti programme. Based on these presentations, issues of consent, privacy and confidentiality, risks and benefits and other areas of ethical examination were discussed in detail with all ERC members.

The highlight of this quarter had definitely been the first state level event organised in Uttar Pradesh on 23 August 2016 - Hamara Nazariya Hamari Awaaz: A state event on advancing SRH, Sports and Human Rights of Adolescent and Young Girls. A select cohort of girl leaders from the IMB programme continued to stay in touch with their village level collectives – Kishori Manch even after the completion of their ten month long curriculum based training. This allowed them to identify issues of their concern like mobility, sanitation, access to education and health services and to develop strategies and plan to advocate improved services and their rights. 75 girl leaders from Mahoba, Bareilly, Benares, Jhansi and Lucknow came together at this event to share their experiences, stories, perspectives and advocate for their needs and rights themselves.

Hamara Nazariya, Hamari Awaaz is conceptualised as a platform for the adolescent girls who have been a part of the ‘It’s My Body’ programme to share their experiences. The day-long event sessions of panel discussions and audio-video presentations led by the girls themselves, where they shared their experience of understanding issues of sexual and reproductive health and rights mediated through playing football.

The event was attended by over 60 people from government departments of health, sports, education, livelihood, other NGOs and by local media in Lucknow. The event was led and facilitated by adolescent girls and they used different mediums (presentations, role plays, talk shows, dance and music) and shared their learnings and experience from the IMB programme. The girls also set up exhibition stalls and presented about the work that the partner CBOs does in different districts.

“It is great to meet these girls and they have such deep understanding of the issues of patriarchy, gender, SRH and rights– Jaya, Naz Foundation, Delhi.

“These girls have changed so much and have undergone a lot of transformation from the first time when I met them. I felt very nice when I saw them on stage today.”–Trainer, Gramonnati Sansthan (Mahoba, Uttar Pradesh).

During the event, one of the guest, acknowledged the efforts made by adolescent girls and made the comment that “these days, girls dominate boys/men in the society.” Responding to this comment, one of the girls from the IMB programme said that “We don’t want to overpower or dominate anyone. If boys/men are ahead of girls, then girls will struggle, on the contrary, if girls are ahead of boys, then boys will struggle. Therefore we don’t want anyone in the society to struggle but we want an equitable society. Infact, we want a society which is just for people from all gender- including men, women, lesbian and transgender.”

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List of CBOs:

Bihar :

1. Akanksha Sewa Sadan, Muzaffarpur
2. Nari Nidhi, Muzaffarpur
3.  Gaurav Grameen Mahila Vikas Manch, Patna

Jharkhand :

1. Mahila Mukti Sansthan , Hazaribagh 
2. Srijan Foundation, Hazaribagh
3. Lok Prerna Kendra, Hazaribagh and Chatra
4. Nurture Trust, West Singhbhum

Uttar Pradesh :

1. Gramonnati Sansthan, Mahoba
2. Mahila Swarozgaar Samiti, Benares
3. Sakar, Bareilly
4. Sadbhavna Trust, Sanat Kada , Lucknow
5. Veerangana Mahila Vikas Manch , Jhansi

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 14 partner CBOs* in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand.

(March, 2016 - May, 2016)

The period from March – May 2016 was a busy quarter at CREA with most of the work focused around program review, reporting and planning for the year ahead commencing from 1 April 2016. During this period, CREA held a review meeting from 2- 4 March 2016 in New Delhi. This meeting was attended by the founders and directors of the partner CBOs, CREA works with. The objective of the meeting was for the group to take stock of the work accomplished so far, identify challenges, reflect on learnings and discuss the way forward.

The review exercise continued to take place within CREA during March – April.  CREA co-implements the Meri Panchayat Meri Shakti  program in collaboration with seven community-based partner organisations in Jharkhand to strengthen leadership capacities of elected women representatives. During the review process, CREA team worked on developing a comprehensive community-based program strategy and design. The discussion with the partner CBOs in the review meeting, helped to identify points of convergence in the existing work with women and girls in the communities across different programs.

This process was further carried on to also review the internal existing processes, systems and formats that are being used to monitor, learn and evaluate the IMB program. In addition to this, the last three months have also been crucial in finalising the evidence report that CREA has been working on as part of the IMB program. The organisation has also planned a second round of Endline survey and study in U.P, Bihar and Jharkhand to understand and assess the long-term impact of the IMB program. CREA has also been working on constituting an Ethics Review Committee for the organisation, which will have its first meeting on 3 June 2016.

March was also the month of International Women’s day. A day celebrated with pride, strength and enthusiasm all over the world. As part of the IMB program, eight large-scale public football tournaments and events were organised in Bihar, U.P and Jharkhand which were attended by over 2000 people. These events include football matches played by the girls enrolled in the IMB program, short plays and public speaking activities led and facilitated by the girls themselves.

“This was the first time, that the girls from our group were given the charge of negotiating directly with all the vendors for sound, mic, food, lights etc. This was significant, as girls in our community don’t get involved in these aspects of organising an event as they are seen as a man’s job”—Trainer from partner CBO in Jharkhand.

In April, CREA along with its partner CBOs selected a small cohort of 210 young girl leaders to strengthen their knowledge and understanding on advocacy. Small group meetings have been held with these groups to identify issues of concern and collectively think of strategies and actions that can address these issues locally or through a more concerted advocacy effort. The issues shared by the girls in these group meetings include access to quality health care, lack of appropriate sanitation facilities for girls in schools and colleges and lack of locally available training and education opportunities for girls and young women.

A five day residential leadership development camp was also held from 22-27 April in Muzaffarpur in Bihar, which was attend by 28 adolescent girls from Patna and Muzaffarpur who have completed the ten-month curriculum based training sessions.

CREA team continued to visit and participate in the program activities from March – May 2016 in Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. In Uttar Pradesh, as part of the IMB program, CREA works with a select group of young women leaders (17-22 years) to provide them with skill-building and leadership development opportunities. As part of this work, meetings were held with the young women to assess their skills-building and learning needs which included computers, photography, filming and self – defence. CREA and its partner CBOs in Uttar Pradesh will be working to design the training and skills-building course for these young women from June – August 2016.

In addition to the ongoing planned program activities, CREA team also participated in external meetings and workshops. These included:

- Workshop on ‘Perspective Building-Adolescent Girls’ Education’ in Hyderabad from 5-6 April 2016.

- Workshop organised by Street Football World and Slum Soccer in Nagpur from 18-21 April 2016.

- Meeting on “Reducing Child Marriage & Teenage Pregnancy: Evidence to Practice” organised by Young Lives India, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) and International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW).

In May 2016, CREA team also attended Women Deliver’s 4th Global Conference, from 16-19 May 2016 in Copenhagen, Denmark to talk about Sexual Rights, Gender and Diversity. CREA in collaboration with Sexual Rights Initiative, Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights, and UHAI EASHRI- the East African Sexual Health and Rights Initiative organised six concurrent sessions that examined different dimensions of SRHR. These include a comprehensive understanding of gender, gender expression, and sexual diversity to advance sexual rights, engaging with heath care systems to overcome stigma and to initiate systemic changes, discussing women's sexual and reproductive freedom in the context of forced intervention, criminalisation and other social practices to safeguard women's rights, health and well- being.

*List of 14 partner CBOs in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand:

Bihar: Akanksha Sewa Sadan, Nari Nidhi and Gaurav Grameen Mahila Vikas Manch

Jharkhand: Mahila Mukti Sansthan, Srijan Foundation, Lok Prerna Kendra, Prerna Bharati, Nav Nirman Mahila Kendra and Nurture Trust

Uttar Pradesh: Gramonnati Sansthan, Mahila Swarozgaar Samiti, Sakar, Veerangana Mahila Vikas Manch and Sadbhavna Trust, Sanat Kada