Girl Leaders Fight Against Early & Forced Marriage

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.