Gender Equality India Project #25232

End Child Marriage Through Education

by Shadhika Project Inc

Project Report | Dec 6, 2024
Urgent Request for Support: Building a Legacy that Endures

By Monica O'Reilly | Development Associate

In the last 32 years, Shadhika has reached over 150,000 girls and community members in India through girl-centered, community-led, skills building programming and comprehensive postsecondary academic support. Our Program Partners and the Shadhika team recently came together at a roundtable discussion to share the insights and challenges that are emerging from the ground. We’d like to share with you some of the experiences that our Partners narrated that illustrate the critical areas of work that Shadhika’s grants support.

Dropout rates: Our partners observed a significant challenge faced by young girls who dropout from 12th grade. They are at an increased risk of early marriage, and lack of access to formal employment. Our partner in Uttar Pradesh, Asian Bridge India remarked how the lack of scholarships and financial support for these students was a critical area of attention.
Financial barriers: The rising fees in government schools and colleges, including exam and admission fees, were identified as a major cause of dropout for college-going young women served by our Partners. Sakhi Trust, our Partner working in Karnataka, emphasized the need for collective advocacy to address this issue.

After decades of championing girls' rights, education, and gender justice in India, Shadhika has made the difficult decision to close its doors in 2025. Despite our successes, Shadhika has reached a pivotal moment. Over the past few years, the political and social landscapes in both the U.S. and India have shifted dramatically, bringing unexpected challenges. Despite our unwavering commitment to gender justice and equity, we have faced significant difficulties in maintaining sustainable funding. Combined with operational complexities and the rapidly changing nonprofit sector, these factors have led us to the thoughtful and necessary decision to sunset Shadhika.

While this decision weighs heavily on our hearts, it underscores the urgent need to demonstrate an unwavering commitment to girls' rights, education, and gender justice. Currently, Shadhika supports 134 scholars and 8 Program Partners, each playing a vital role in driving meaningful change and holding the potential to transform the future of their communities. Now more than ever, we need your support to sustain this legacy of securing gender equity and justice for women and girls in India. We are reaching out to this community for one final request: Help us honor our commitments to Shadhika’s Scholars and Program Partners, who are urgently relying on these resources.

By the end of 2024, Shadhika’s final campaign aims to raise a minimum of $250,000. These funds will:

Support our Program Partners in advancing gender-justice programs that help girls stay in school and avoid early, forced marriage.
Honor scholarship commitments to the remaining 100 Scholars currently enrolled in postsecondary education.
Enable us to retain key staff members, ensuring continuity and a successful transition of our initiatives through June 2025.

As of now, Shadhika has raised $83,335, about 33% of our $250,000 goal. We hope that through your support that we can reach our goal and so that we can continue our dedication to Shadhika’s mission and to the young women we serve as we sunset the organization. Thank you for your steadfast support and dedication to our cause, and in advance, for your generous contribution today. With your help, we can continue to make a lasting impact on the lives of young women across India, empowering them to build a brighter future for themselves and generations to come.

For more information and FAQ about Shadhika’s sunsetting please click here.

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Aug 8, 2024
End Child Marriage: Annual Report is Released!

By Urmila Reghunath | Communications Manager

Over the last two years Shadhika has been working towards a more meaningful and deep Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning process to understand the reach and impact of the work undertaken by our local Program Partners and Scholars. This complexity-aware method has included incorporating trust-based principles in understanding in depth the challenges and success observed by the leaders on the ground. Shadhika’s latest Annual Report features the insights gathered through this process and highlights the stories of change and impact from our Scholars and Program Partners across India.

In 2023, Shadhika supported 134 new Scholars, including 88 new Scholars of whom 79% are from marginalized communities in India. 100% of the graduating Scholars successfully completed their degrees. Shadhika’s Program Partners reached over 14,000 girls and over 118,000 community members through their programmatic work around the prevention of child marriage, ensuring girls’ access to education, and upholding women’s rights. Shadhika’s partners working with men and boys against gender-based violence recently hosted the first-ever Gender Fair in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh and together engaged with over 970 men and boys in 2023 on initiatives to prevent gender-based violence.

This multimedia report is embedded with audio-visual stories and written accounts of how grassroots leaders are blazing new paths towards gender justice. Make sure you read Karthika’s (name changed) story of how she stood against the oppressive Devadasi system to pursue her education, all the way to a potential PhD at Harvard. The report also features a case study on how sports has been used as a tool to mobilize and engage with young girls and women across multiple geographies.

To learn more about the impact of your support and Shadhika’s work, take a look at Shadhika’s Blog where you’ll find the work of our partners in India, our series of Summer Reading recommendations from Shadhika Scholars, and the ways in which you can talk about Shadhika’s work to your friends.

Many thanks to our supporters and well-wishers.

Links:

Shadhika's 2023-2024 Annual Report

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Apr 11, 2024
End Child Marriage: Blazing New Trails in 2024

By Urmila Reghunath | Communications Manager

Art by Shadhika Scholar Vidha, on Child Marriage

The new year for Shadhika has seen a renewed commitment to our goal of supporting grassroots gender justice work, and has emphasized the urgency of this work in India. This year, Shadhika is supporting 134 young women as Shadhika Scholars. This cohort of Shadhika’s Scholars come from diverse backgrounds including young married women, mothers, transwomen, and Dalit and tribal communities.

Shadhika started the year with a reflection of 2023, and the impact created by our program partners and Scholars in India. This Year in Review video captures the highlights of Shadhika’s work, and the diverse activities through which Shadhika engaged with grassroots leaders.

India ranks 140 of 156 countries in the The Global Gender Gap Index 2021 rankings, falling 25 ranks between 2006 and 2020. India's neighbors Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar all rank above India as per this Global Gender Gap Report 2021 by the World Economic Forum. One in three child brides in the world are in India, with 216.65 million women and girls reported as first married or in a union before the age of 18. According to the UNICEF, declines in the level of child marriage need to occur at a pace nearly 20 times faster than now to reach the SDG target of eliminating the practice by 2030. Shadhika’s partners have been working towards ensuring gender justice in their communities, reaching over 11,780 girls in 2022-23. Last year, 97% of young women under 18 years of age supported by the Shadhika Program Partners delayed early forced marriage. Through community-mobilization, workshops on leadership and skill development, awareness camps, collaborations with schools and institutions, and through the innovative use of art, drama, and music, these grassroots leaders have been blazing the way for the gender justice movement in India.

This year, Shadhika has partnered with two new local women-led organizations - Faith Foundation in Meghalaya, and Centre for Women and Girls in Manipur. These organizations, both based out of the North-East of India, serve rural, tribal communities who face unique challenges in accessing their rights to education, safety, and healthcare. These organizations are striving to ensure gender justice, safeguard child rights, and serve children and women from displaced communities facing conflict. It is important to note that the work done by these organizations is set against the context of limited funding in the region, with only 2% of state-specific Corporate Social Responsibility spending in India being directed towards the North-East regions (State of CSR in India 2014-21 report, Sattva).

With the support of our local partners, Shadhika Scholars are continuing their educational journey and growth as community leaders advocating for gender justice. In commemoration of the International Women’s Day this March, Shadhika featured artworks by 25 Shadhika Scholars to showcase the tales of collective action and the spirit of resilient leadership that our Scholars have shared. Head on over to view this virtual art exhibition on ‘Collective Art and Action’. Watch this video to listen to how Navya, a Shadhika Alum, graduated with a business degree in Aviation and found employment in her field of study, despite the immense challenges she faced.

To learn more about the impact of your support and Shadhika’s work, take a look at Shadhika’s Blog where you’ll find the work of our partners in India, our intentions for 2024, photos from the 2023 Leaders for Change Summits, and the ways in which you can talk about Shadhika’s work to your friends.

Many thanks to our supporters and well-wishers.

Links:

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