Girl Leaders Fight Against Early & Forced Marriage

Since September 2016, from film screenings to winning short film contest, a lot has been done as a run up to Early and Forced Marriage Campaign 2.0. A major celebration for us all through this is that six of our past campaigners have now joined our team as interns and will take up their new journey training as professionals from here on. Three of the past campaigners have started their own community initiatives through fellowships that we have provided and they teach girls from disadvantaged backgrounds about gender and related stereotypes that are prevailing in society and how they can take a stand against them. These are the new leaders who have emerged from the campaigning process last year. We call this the Level 3 of Young Women's Leadership Program.

In October, 2016, 6 of the Level 3 girls made two minutes short films on ‘What is peace to me?’ where they showcased daily lives of girls and what are the things/ activities in which they find peace. These films were sent as entries to ‘Peace Builders International Film Festival, 2016’ and have also won an award there! This public exposure has infused so much confidence in girls that they now organise screenings of their films themselves in different communities and also hold discussions afterwards to discuss around the topic of ‘early and forced marriage’. The girls have been able to organise 10 film screenings since September 2016, out of which six have been organised within different communities of Delhi and four have been organised outside Delhi in association with our partner organisations. In the coming days, three more screenings will be conducted with the help from Mahila Kamgar Manch, a group that works with domestic workers in Delhi.

The girls have now started taking up different roles and more responsibilities. 15 of the past campaigners are now Level 3 leaders with our Young Women Leadership Program and are learning advanced technical skills including photoshop, corel draw, advanced computer techniques, etc. Once campaigners of the project, they have now grown into facilitators who facilitate sessions and classes. 12 of the previous year's Level 1 girls are now in Level 2, which means they have joined as active campaigners in the campaign against early and forced marriage and help the project in all their capacities, be it report writing, photography, organising film screenings and mobilising for it, carrying the discussion forward or just observing it.

These film screenings have helped in creating awareness among community members about early and forced marriage. They have started understanding the adversities of marrying girls at an early age. The girls have also started questioning the societal norms set for how a girl should dress up, when she should get married, who she should marry, what role family should play in her development, etc. They have gained a lot of confidence to stand straight against all these stigmas. Now, they themselves take initiative to organise film screenings and inspire other girls to come forward. They have learned to travel alone and represent the organisation at events and conferences.

However, we often receive flak from parents who ask us to take their boys for computer classes and do not give importance to their girls’ education. To this, our girls explain to them that girls should also be given equal opportunity to learn and become independent. And since girls don't get such opprtunities otherwise, the project that FAT runs should remain girls only to prioritize girls needs!

A challenge that remains is irregularity in participation of some campaigners. Most of the girls associated with the project are not able to come regularly due to their after school tuitions and household chores, and as a result they miss on things that are taught in the class. The facilitators try their best to keep everyone on same page by taking extra classes of the absentees and devoting time to them to make them understand the concepts.

With all these activities and opportunities, most of the new girls in the project have now started taking initiatives and observing stereotypes within their communities and breaking them. For film screenings, we are partnering with organisations that has taken the project to national level. The project has provided a safe space to girls where they feel free to speak up their minds. We are thankful for your support so far and seek the same in future to create more such safe space opportunities for girls so they stand for themselves in their lives.

FAT has entered an exciting second phase of the campaign preparations for the project on Early and Forced Marriage (EFM). The project started in January 2015 and has been a huge success in reaching out to thousands of people. This year, new campaigners from the Young Women Leadership Program will join the older campaigners to run the second phase of the campaign. The previous year’s campaigners have grown as facilitators and leaders not only in taking the campaign outside the organization but also developing the understanding on EFM among new campaigners within the organization. The process to bring together the new and old campaigners has begun.

We would like to share the activities planned for this year and the work done so far which are as follows:

• Organise workshops and trainings with new campaigners: A series of workshop has been organized in the month of July and August to build an understanding on the issues related to girls, gender discrimination, body and sexuality, reproductive health and rights. To deepen their understanding there is a plan to organizing a discussion on negotiations around marriage vis-à-vis feminism. This will be done to help the campaigners connect with the issue beyond just their personal experience and see it as a holistic issue affecting the lives of many girls.

• Build the facilitation skills in the new campaigners: This is an ongoing process. The campaigners from the previous year organized a couple of mock screenings with the FAT team members and new campaigners. The objective was to sharpen their facilitation skills in order to take greater roles in the campaign; orient the new campaigners on the genesis of the campaign; brainstorm around possible challenges, questions and arguments and to collectively plan ahead. This was done based on the idea of peer learning

• Build Photography and Filmmaking skills of the campaigners: This year, the girls began level 2 with basic photography classes. Simultaneously, due to the keen interest of the level three girls to learn DSLR, advanced photography classes were also being conducted. The camera classes for both the levels have almost finished and the next plan is to organize a photo exhibition of the photos taken by level 2 girls.

For this, activities like ‘Theme based photography assignments’ have been incorporated in the daily classes for the new campaigners (level 2 girls) to help them express their understanding on the issues mentioned above by using photography as a media. For e.g. The girls were given the theme ‘Gender roles’ and they were asked to express it through photographs as an assignment in the class. Learning photography and filmmaking has been an imminent part of the level 2 of the YWLP for years.

Another activity was encouraging the participants of level 3, who have already learnt filmmaking skills to participate in a contest named ‘Peace Builders International Film Festival, 2016’. 5 girls made and submitted 2 minute films on what peace meant for them by brainstorming, story boarding and finally shooting and editing.

• Organise Screening of the Film on EFM called Todo Bandishen (Break the Chains): This would be done through three strategies for three different kinds of audience. One, with organizations in Delhi working with young people on their rights; Second, with YWLP program participants (beneficiaries) in another province towards the east of India called Jharkhand, where FAT is working with a partner organization to replicate its model of the program; Third, with the mothers of the new campaigners through home screenings to open up this issue for an in depth discussion with them. The objective is to generate awareness on the issue, amplify the voices of the campaigners and understand the limitations and point of view of different people to find possibilities of building a common understanding beyond generation gaps and societal barriers. All the screenings are to begin in September and the preparations are going on in its full swing. This time we will have to plan low cost and less number of screenings compared to the previous year considering the availability of limited resources.The communication with organisations with whom we will organize screenings has already begun. By far, 3 organisations have confirmed.

• Set up exhibitions on the theme around Early and Forced Marriage in organizational, institutional or community spaces where the screening of the film would be organized. The photographs clicked and submitted by the old and new campaigners during classes will be used to design the exhibition.  

With the full swing preparations to launch the second phase of the campaign, the excitement and activity in FAT is at its peak. We want to thank our supporters for the journey so far and look forward to your support and energy in taking our campaign ahead.