Gender Equality India Project #18018

Young Girls Fight Against Early & Forced Marriage

by Feminist Approach to Technology Society

Young Girls Fight Against Early & Forced Marriage

Project Report | May 26, 2015
Building on conceptual clarity

By Risha Samanta | Project Leader

FAT versus Red Brigade

Feminist Approach to Technology (FAT) has entered its crucial third phase of the project on Early and Forced Marriage (EFM). A group of 30 girls who are a part of this project have taken a step further and decided to understand this social phenomenon in a critical way and what makes marriage so central to social existence. The girls have already taken basic and preliminary camera classes by our media trainer and consultant Ms. Pooja Pant, a renowned documentary filmmaker who also heads Voices of Women Media (VOW) in Kathmandu, Nepal. While making the photo stories as a part of the camera assignment, the girls wanted to delve into the concepts of patriarchy and how it engulfs the working of our whole society. They have already developed an understanding on these issues, along with an understanding of feminism, women’s rights, sexual and reproductive health and rights, as part of the Tech Center (Technical Center) course at FAT. As their next step involves bringing awareness in the community through creative use of technology (by making a film on EFM), they have decided to get newer perspectives on the topic.

Engaging with the community will be an essential part of the screening of the movie that is set to be made, and it will be followed by a ‘charcha’ (discussion) which will involve discussions with various groups of the community, including young and married people, parents, youth groups, peers and elders. These discussions will involve talking about various topics linked to EFM. Of the many issues that we are going to be dealing with, the first that we engaged with was violence. Since violence is one of the overarching issues that are persistent in most of the institutions in our society, marriage being one of them, it becomes very important to speak as survivors rather than victims when addressing this issue. This is because within the larger paradigm of feminist intervention, it is crucial to emancipate rather than victimize, to talk about the experience rather than brush it under the carpet. Thus, in order to build and prepare the girls for upcoming discussions on sensitive topics, it was essential to involve the girls in an exposure trip to develop a vocabulary and means to speak out as ‘survivors’ and not as ‘victims’.

An exposure trip was recently organized for the girls as a part of the project to Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh (North India). There was a desire to meet an organization that works on combating violence. In this regard, we came across Red Brigade, an organization that works on combating sexual violence with a focus on empowering women through self defense education. This fit in perfectly with FAT’s needs as in the past we have realized that sexual violence is something that the girls and communities are dealing with on a regular basis. This trip was a great success in terms of the exchanging of ideas and sharing about the feminist struggles between young women of both the organizations. While both FAT and Red Brigade differed in their areas of work and programmatic interventions, what united us was the fact that both of us were working towards women’s empowerment by fighting deep-rooted patriarchal structures. The collective fight in this valuable exchange was very useful in building solidarities among all of us.

It’s commendable how a change of place and environment can bring about such a huge progress in the girls. One could witness a change in almost every sphere—starting from clothing, food intake, interactions with other girls, participation in all activities to behavioral changes in individuals. For a few girls, it was a life-changing experience as many of them had never travelled alone, let alone in a train. We were a group of 26 girls (along with team FAT) travelling together and that itself was a never-felt before experience for many of us. The girls who had faced restrictions in everyday mobility of coming to the Tech Center had now seen the outside world for the first time. For the ones whose interactions were limited to just family and a few friends, they got to interact with people from different states with varied contextual realities. This exposure trip was an important landmark in the project in terms of bringing some substantial changes in the participating girls as well as some of them who have taken up the challenge to fight forces that tries to make them submissive.

Continuing the substantial and transformative changes, regular workshops and discussions on various social issues have been made an integral part of this project. These workshops are being conducted by our team member Shivani Gupta, Programme Associate at FAT. They are on various issues starting from gender, feminism and patriarchy to politics of love in a heteronormative society, family as a patriarchal institution and politics of consent, choice and agency. The workshops have been extremely helpful in creating a healthy and safe culture of sharing personal stories, narrative and struggles. There was a lot of reluctance in even accepting family as a patriarchal setup initially but the common stories that have come up exemplified for it. Gradually, the harsh realities of patriarchy are unfolding more as the workshop continues to progress.

As mentioned in the last report, two of our Tech Center alumni, Deepika and Renu, are working with us in this project in the capacity of interns, assisting and training the girls in photography and filmmaking. The participating girls have been working on creating photo stories by trying to capture all social issues through the medium of photography under the training and guidance of the EFM interns. Deepika and Renu are also doing the documentation of each workshop that is conducted by Shivani. While the EFM interns are training the girls in technical skills, they are themselves getting trained to use DSLR and editing software on iMac by an external resource person.

Deepika and Renu, as EFM interns, have had the brilliant opportunity of expanding their learning curve by becoming independent photographers and video trainers. They were engaged in another project of FAT that is working on the replication of the Tech Center in Gujarat by partnering with an organization in Vadodara city, Sahiyar Stree Sangathan. Their journey from being students at the Tech Center to becoming independent trainers who conducted workshops outside Delhi has been a challenging, yet an incredible one.

While the preparations for making the movie are in full swing, a workshop for outlining the issues to be raised in the online and offline campaign was conducted by Ms. Nandini Rao, an external resource person whose expertise lies in the area of gender training. A women’s rights activist herself, the girls thoroughly enjoyed interacting with her and brainstorming on several campaign ideas. Four key components linked to EFM emerged during this workshop, namely health, education, sexuality and labour. The purpose of this workshop was to make a blueprint of our entry into the communities with this issue, picking and identifying tools for the upcoming campaign and building various perspectives on EFM. This three-day workshop consisted of activities and exercises that were aimed at building conceptual clarity and using that knowledge to build various materials for the campaigns such as posters, slogans, cartoon strips, songs, play etc.

With so much happening and FAT booming with activities, the girls couldn’t be more excited and prepared to join the collective fight against early and forced marriage. We are thankful to all our supporters and every individual donor who has helped in making the struggle easier for us. We are confident of being impactful in our intervention and look forward to telling you more about our activities in the coming months. Thank you once again for all your support and help!

Girls participating at the workshop

Renu teaching filmmaking to the girls

Deepika teaching photography to the girls

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Feb 23, 2015
Continuing the Journey to Fight Early Marriage

By Risha Samanta | Program Trainee (Technical Center)

Deepika's work station

Feminist Approach to Technology (FAT) has entered the exciting second phase of its project on ‘Young Girls Fighting against Early Marriage’. The girls have embarked on this journey with a lot of enthusiasm. After finishing an entire year at FAT’s Technical Center (also known as the Tech Center), the girls, who largely come from socially and economically disadvantaged families residing in urban poor settlements of South Delhi girls have decided to take a step forward and enhance their technical skills. They are learning photography and filmmaking to document the pressure of marrying early and how they feel about it. The everyday pressure to marry early is something every adolescent girl can relate to. As soon as the girls reach puberty, they are constantly reminded that it is the beginning of a life full of marital responsibilities. A young girl begins to be viewed as a burden, until the time she goes to her ‘actual home’ which is only after her marriage. The recent batch of the girls from the Tech Center has collectively decided to stop this social menace in their own independent way. The objective is to bring about an attitudinal change in their communities regarding their daughters and safeguarding their future. The girls have already developed an understanding and a keen interest in women’s rights, feminism, patriarchy, gender, sexuality and leadership through their learning’s at FAT. The girls have decided to take their understanding on these issues forward by learning filmmaking and begin their first steps towards community activism by making people aware of their own stories- that they will document in their own films- and ensuring that their voices are heard. Following the film screening, the girls are also set to talk and discuss with different groups—young married people, parents, youth group, elders of the community—about the issue they are tackling and record them in yet another short film called ‘charcha’ (discussion).

The first process of learning filmmaking has begun by teaching girls how to use a camera. A group of 30 girls (Tech Center’s alumni) are now part of the camera classes organized by FAT with the help of a renowned documentary filmmaker, Pooja Pant (from Voice of Women Media). These classes are very interactive and open ended, in which the girls get to experiment with their imagination using the power of a camera lens. Girls get to participate in fun and engaging photography assignments while in every class, Pooja also discusses relevant social issues with the girls. Following this, the girls are taught to capture this through a camera.

The process of learning filmmaking is a dialogic process at FAT, and because it’s the girls’ insight of their communities, so when the girls start to capture, they carry sentiments which is difficult for an outsider to bring about. To explain the art of storytelling through pictures, a special workshop was arranged by Pooja Pant. An external facilitator anchored this session on making photo stories. The girls were taught to link pictures in a storyline. Following this, they were given an assignment to make a photo stories on women’s empowerment and the meaning of freedom in their lives. To interlink the photo stories and everyday life is extremely essential and has been possible with support from all of you.

We are extremely thankful that it is through your support that we have been able to buy equipment for the project, through the Global Giving platform, a DSLR – a Cannon 7D - and 10 small – Sony cameras. The Sony digital cameras are being used by the girls to learn photography, as well as do their weekly assignment (where the girls are supposed to bring forward issues in their community from a women’s rights perspective). For the exchange of ideas amongst the girls and to share the responsibility, one camera is shared by a group of three to four girls who reside in the same neighborhoods. The Cannon-7D DSLR has been kept for professional use by experts and by the girls who feel confident about using it. An iMac has also been purchased for editing purposes. Two of our Tech Center Alumni -- Deepika Passi and Renu Arya - who have been a part of a similar project in the past, are interning with us for the current project. They are helping Pooja with the classes, assisting the girls in photography. They also document the everyday classes and ensure the availability of the girls. They are passionate young girls, who have been through a journey of being a student, volunteer and finally interning with FAT. The hard work and teachings are complimented with occasional leisure activities.

One such activity to add up to the excitement of the girls was a photo-shoot organized for them. It is essential to make them feel confident to be both the photographer and the photographed. Girls dressed their best on this occasion and posed very confidently. There was a marked change in their body language which showed their comfort in front of the camera. This comfort, we realized, has to be linked to voicing their opinions. Speaking as survivors is something that we have always focused on and strived to achieve an attitudinal change. So we decided to create a platform for the girls to speak and voice their concerns. Radio was chosen as the medium to propagate their views, opinions and voice the struggles. The girls had a wonderful dialogue on their views on early marriage, where the girls hosted the entire event themselves, answered the ‘why’s’ of everything, sang songs on dowry and even recited poems. The radio show is going to be on air as soon as we begin our campaign for early marriage in July-August. The girls have also come with the name for the radio show—‘kadam badhao (March Forward).’

A bag full of activities has been planned for the campaigning which begins in August. After the completion of camera classes, there will be different workshops for the girls from March onwards. This will enhance their understanding on the issues of patriarchy, gender, feminism, rights, family, choice, agency, sexual health, and importance of everyday negotiations.

With this campaign we are looking to bring about a significant change where the girls speak as survivors and not as victims. The campaign is not about banning marriages but to closely look at choices and decisions the girls want to make about their future, whether it is to study further, get a job or marry out of their will.

The team at FAT and our very talented girls would like to extend their gratitude for making this campaign materialize, and helping us in moving towards a world where women’s choices are given importance. We are highly obliged for your constant support and having faith in our work. We will constantly update you on the activities that the budding young feminist leaders are engaging in.

FAT team with i-Mac

Photoshoot

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Nov 28, 2014
We are about to begin the fight against Early Marriage

By Shivani Gupta | Shivani Gupta

Dear Supporters,

Feminist Approach to Technology is entering an exciting phase of work with its new project on, ‘Young Girls Fight against Early Marriage.’ We are working on this because India is said to become one of the emerging world powers in the near future but in a society that is still ridiculed with conservative notions of women and womanhood. The idea of positioning and situating women in households, to fulfill their domestic roles has not only hampered their development but has been detrimental for their personal wellbeing. Their familiarity and access to a new changing world is limited, especially for young girls who belong to an economically backward and a socially oppressed class. This is the group of adolescent girls that Feminist Approach to Technology aims to enable and empower.

Currently, with the funds that FAT raised through your support on GlobalGiving, it is planning the implementation of the project with the girls at the Technical Center regarding how they want to capture the issue within their communities, through filmmaking. This discussion is being followed by technical training on photography and filmmaking for the alumni and FAT team members – this will be the team assisting the filmmaking process. Simultaneously, we are attempting to raise institutional funds for aspects of the project other than film making. The team is also in the process of developing a detailed plan and strategy for the project, so that when it begins in January the implementation is swift and efficient.

From January onwards, the girls from the Center will be introduced to photography and filmmaking techniques by a professional filmmaker who will be working with them for next six months. She will also be the one helping them with editing of the film. This will then be screened amongst the communities and the public to engage them in a discussion on early marriage. With this we will also be involved in regular advocacy in Delhi while also expanding it to Patna (Bihar) – here the infestation of early marriage is as worse as urban slums of Delhi. This initiative will help in developing a network and running a larger campaign on young girls’ fighting early marriage.

At FAT, we are all gearing up to start our fight in personal and public spaces to enable girls’ to enhance their agency and realize their aspirations and ambitions without getting forced and pressurized to get married at an early age.

FAT would again like to thank all the supporters who have helped us actualize this project. Each and every contribution has reaffirmed the faith of the girls’ in this fight. We look forward to having you as a supporter with us always, with a promise of not disappointing you. We will keep you updated with all the exciting happenings of the project. Keeping checking FAT’s official website for more information: www.fat-net.org

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