By Anuradha Chatterji | Director, Resource Development
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 :
Jharkhand :
Uttar Pradesh :
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