By Anuradha Chatterji | Director, Resource Development
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 this period, a team of 7 girls (in age group of 16-22 years) from It’s My Body program (Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh) participated in a week-long event ‘Girls Play Girls Lead’, a football league festival organised by YFC[1] (Youth Football Club) from 11-18 November 2017 in Rurka Kalan, Punjab, India. This festival is a part of YFC’s annual EDU-League (Education-League) in Punjab, which is a combination of innovative sports and education initiative.
This football festival provided an opprotunity to these girls to participate in a great space for exchange of learnings. They played as a team for the first time, learnt new skills from other teams and coaches, represented CREA and partner organisations at the event, and confidently shared their understanding on the issues of sexulity, gender and rights. Though getting permission from their parents to participate in this event was still a huge challenge. The coach of the IMB football team (who was a participant in IMB programme and now is a coach and IMB trainer) was successful in convincing the parents.
“I had difficulty in convincing my parents for participating in the event. They think that I am shy and simple and innocent to travel to Punjab. But when the coach spoke to my parents and explained about the event and told them that other girls from Jharkhand are also travelling to Punjab, they got convinced that I will be safe and will manage….After reaching Delhi, Salma (coach) called my parents and they were relaxed after that.” – Kaushalya, participant from Jharkhand
As part of this festival, CREA had organised and facilitated a session with 150 girls on the issues of sexuality and gender to build their understanding on gender, discrimination and sports and we got an overwhelming response from the participants. IMB girls also observed that most of the organisations working with girls focus on increasing their skills on sports but they do not focus much on building their understanding on some of the crucial issues related to girl’s lives like gender, sexuality, consent and choice.
“They all are very good football players. But, they only play football. Don’t they have sessions on gender and other issues like we do? – Sanjana, Uttar Pradesh
The event also gave an opportunity to the IMB team to reflect on their skills to play football and realise that they need to practice more and also work on their team strategies. Although, they did not win in any match but they came back with great confidence and learning. Overall, it was a great learning and networking experience for CREA and the girls.
[1] http://yfcrurkakalan.org/
*List of IMB partners:
Bihar:
Jharkhand:
Uttar Pradesh:
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