Every 4th girl is a child bride. Help change this

Dear Donor,

Hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy!!

Mentioning below some of the key highlights of our work between August and Dec 21.

Training of Team Change Leaders (TCLs) in Uttar Pradesh to help the TCLs strengthen their emerging leadership skills, training on the conceptual understanding of gender and discrimination, facilitation skills and the Child Safeguarding Policy are conducted on a regular basis. The training programme during the present reporting period was conducted in UP and Jharkhand in two batches with 68 participants and they learnt several tools and activities to address and explain gender stereotypes and the larger patriarchal structure. The TCLs learnt about different techniques of learning, and four Taaron ki Toli (Legion of Stars) chapters namely ‘Yeh Kaun Hai’, ‘Suno Toh Sahi Suno’, ‘Saaf Santulit Swasth’ and ‘Do Atmakathaye’. On the last day of training, the facilitators encouraged the participants to practice conducting sessions and were then given feedback on their performance.

Webinar- Sapne Na Tute- Saath Na Chhute The pandemic has worsened the situation of girls in the country. Childline, the Haryana state supported children’s helpline tracked over 10,000 cases of early marriage between April and August 2020. In our intervention areas in Haryana, school drop out of girls have increased due to closing of Schools and girls’ limited access to digital devices. We foresee that gender gap will widen for school education, as we see boys resuming school, whereas girls are being left behind. We have also witnessed a surge in cases of early marriage as parents facing economic crisis have chosen to rid themselves of the financial burden of their daughters.To address these issues and to open the discussion of need based counselling for the adolescents’, we organised a webinar in association with Counsellor Dost in which Rajesh Vashisht, a teacher mentor known as KVS Guru provided guidance to the adolescent girls regarding how to sail through these hard times, focus on studies, take care of mental and Physical health and pursue their dreams. 162 adolescent girls from six districts of Haryana (Panipat, Sonipat, Karnal, Rohtak, Jhajjar and Gurugram) participated in this webinar.

Kishor-Kishori Mela (Adolescents Fair) - Badi Si Asha In Haryana, we have experienced that there is a need of awareness and better understanding about career path among adolescents of grades 9 to 12 which also affects their decision of choosing their subjects after 10th or 12th class. One of the objective of this Mela was to make the adolescents girls aware that they can pursue any career paths to realise their dreams. Pandemic also cause loss of aspiration among the adolescents specially the girls and to address this and try that they re-gain confidence in studies and aspiration. We also approached some of the officials to act as role models, they shared their life journey during the Mela and inspired the adolescents. To support adolescents’ aspiration, we had discussion with parents using parental engagement animation film.  In this Kishor-Kishori Mela we reached more than 26 thousand adolescents, parents, teachers and community members through 224 spots. 

28 Kishori melas were held in Mahrajganj and Ghazipur in UP reaching 6604 people. The aim of these community level Kishori melas was to promote inter-generational dialogues and mother-daughter bonding so that girls as well as their mothers get courage, confidence and safe space to raise their voices against ills of early marriage, gender based discrimination and violence and rights of girls. Adolescents were engaged in such activities as poster making, thank you cards, cultural presentations, gender games and activities and sharing of their aspirations.

Theatre of Oppressed- the theme of the theatre wason issues of early marriage, gender based discrimination and violence. 144 shows reaching up to 30250 audiences were performed in UP and Jharkhand. Audience felt very emotional after listening to the lyrics of -‘Byah Na Karao Baba’ (Do not solemnize my marriage) sung during the theatre of Oppressed shows. A young recently married girl in Hanumantpur village of Bakshi Ka Talab of Lucknow was moved to tears, the Head of village Gohnakala appreciated messages and theatre performance. An advocate visiting Sansarpur village was so impressed that she offered to give free legal advice to girls and women of our intervention areas. 

This all work is happening because of support of DONORS like YOU. We would request you to continue your support and if possible recommend our project to like-minded people.
 

With Hope and Gratitude,

Aman Chhabra.