Empower Girls in India Through Sports

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