By Anuradha Chatterji | Director, Resource Development
Update for Global Giving
December 2017-February 2018
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.
During the period of December 2017 to February 2018 important activities took place towards further strengthening the programme as well as the girls of It’s My Body (IMB) programme. The following has been the highlights:
ü New batch of girls (batch 5) joined the IMB programme
ü Participation in 4th Annual Goals for Girls Summit 2018, New Delhi
New batch of girls (batch 5) joined the IMB programme – During this reporting period CREA and its partner organizations have added 1574 adolescent girls as batch 5 of the IMB programme. A comprehensive and systematic process of selection of girls by listing and collecting data (list of adolescent girls) from government run ICDS (Integrated Community Development Scheme) programme was done to ensure equal and fair representation of girls from all ages between 12-16 years, different caste and community and out of school girls.Out of the total number of 1574 girls 39% belongs to Scheduled Caste community, 52% belongs to OBC (Other Backward Classes), 6% girls are from Scheduled Tribe community and 4% belongs to the general category.
Participation in 4th Annual Goals for Girls[1] Leadership Summit (G4G) – 30 IMB girls from 10 partner organizations[2] across three states participated in the 4th annual Goals for Girls Summit from 2nd-6th January 2018 in Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi. It is an annual gathering of girls, coaches and organizations from across India as part of an exchange program with United States. A total of 280 girls, coaches and staff participated in the summit from 13 organizations across India. The objective of this summit is to build life skills and leadership skills of girls by using football to become agents of change in their own life as well as in their community.
Participation in the gathering provided IMB girls a rich learning experience. They interacted with girls from all over the country and from USA and participated in various dialogue and discussions around leadership. In addition to this they got training from coaches and professional athletes from the USA with a strong focus on leadership activities. As part of the summit they had friendly soccer match between all participating teams and developed their change projects.
Goals for Girls leadership summit focuses on building leadership skills through soccer, technical training and various leadership and team building activities. In this process all teams work on conceptualizing and developing their ‘change’ projects which they go back with and work during the period of next one year. IMB girls too worked on their project, it was on building awareness about gender inequality in their communities and schools in which the girls would be focusing on ensure girls in their own community and school gets an opportunity to play football. As these 30 girls have learned advance techniques and skills set during the event, they will be teachnig those with others girls aged 12-16 years in their respective community in the next one year. CREA will be working with the partners and the girls to update G4G on the progress. Along with the sport training they would also engage with the partner CBO in creating awareness about gender inequality and advocating for equal rights for girls among parents and other members in the community. As part of their project they proposed that they will share their learning from the summit with other girls by doing sessions on teamwork, leadership and communication with them. They confidently came forward to take the lead to train other girls for becoming more comfortable with their bodies while playing football.
“Most of the girls still don’t get opportunities for playing sports like football which are considered for boys. In our schools when we ask our teachers for football they don’t understand why we want to play football and not do drawing like other girls. It is strange for them but we want to create awareness so that they understand that girls can also play football and start encouraging girls to play football.” – IMB participants
For many of the IMB girls playing in such a big stadium i.e. national level stadium for the first time was overwhelming initially, and their excitement converted into tremendous confidence to actively participate in the activities and matches at the summit. They very enthusiastically participated in each and every activity of the summit. It was awesome to see them interact and enjoy with other girls, although most of them did not know each other’s language it hardly made any difference for them to connect with other girls. IMB girls played with the total sporting spirit and reached the semi-finals of soccer matches;. In four days they played, learnt, laughed and enjoyed together; they made friends and stood out as leaders and strong team amongst others.
“Till now, we used to play at our villages only. We have reached here because of our hard work and confidence. We have reached till semi-finals; if we practice regularly we could even reach to the finals and win it.” – IMB participant from Jharkhand
*List of IMB partners:
Bihar:
Jharkhand:
Uttar Pradesh:
[1] http://www.goalsforgirls.org/
[2]Akansha Seva Sadan, Muzaffarpur; Nari Nidhi, Muzaffarpur; Gaurav Grameen Mahila Vikas Manch, Patna from Bihar
Mahila Mukti Sansthan, Hazaribagh; Srijan Foundation , Hazaribagh; Lok Prerna Kendra, Hazaribagh and Chatra; Nurture Trust, West Singhbhum from Jharkhand
Gramonnati Sansthan, Mahoba; Mahila Swarozgaar Samiti, Benaras; Sakar, Bareilly from Uttar Pradesh
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