Give GIRLS in India a CHANCE at life

Dear Donor,

Here's wishing you a very Happy 2018!

Starting the year on a good note, here are some of our work highlights from Haryana and I am delighted to share the research evalutation results and the report with you.

School Intervention:

A)   Celebrated the success of the first batch of students of TkT: This session began on an emotional note, as our first batch of students (now in class 10), graduated from the TkT programme. We celebrated their success by distributing certificates of graduation and acknowledging their contributions and achievements in this journey. The ceremony reached out to 6700 people from 62 schools of Rohtak and Jhajjar (including students, teachers, and principals). The students also shared their learnings through poetry, theatre and songs they learnt during various activities that were a part of the programme. All students vowed that they’d always keep trying to create an equitable society.

B)   Improved awareness on gender issues of 4000 students: We commenced TkT sessions with the new batch of students (classes 6 & 7) from 40 schools in Rohtak (26) and Jhajjar (14). The enthusiasm shown by the new students was very overwhelming. It was good to know that many already knew about the TkT programme, implying that our students are going back and discussing their learnings with the older or younger peers. We have also started advance-level trainings for our previous batch (class 10 students). All 7 direct touch points selected from the curriculum have been completed with standards 6 & 7 and 5 direct touch points from the advance level curriculum have been completed with the 10th standard. On an average, we reached to 3930 students per month in schools during the reporting period.

C)    Improved awareness of Teachers and Principals through meetings: Due to communal crisis in Haryana, we weren’t able to organise the teachers’ and principals’ meeting as per our plan.Hence, we decided that we will merge teacher’s meeting with our district level J-Pal study dissemination. 45 teachers participated in this meeting.

D)    Networked with key stakeholders through J-Pal end line study dissemination in Rohtak & Jhajjar:  We invited acclaimed global research organisation, J-Pal (Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab) to conduct an impact assessment of the Taaron Ki Toli programme over a period of 2.5 years with a massive sample of 14,000 students across 314 government schools. We organized a dissemination event to share the key findings from the J-PAL evaluation of our project where 140 people participated which included government officials, CSOs & teachers, and principals.

Community Intervention and Mobilisation:

A)   Enabled to create a supportive environment for girls through community intervention with Mother’s, PRI/Male & Youth Groups: In our 3 years of intervention, we have seen increased awareness amongst our students as they have begun challenging the gender discriminatory norms within their communities and circles. However, they often don’t have a supportive and conducive environment to materialize their actions. Earlier, community intervention wasn’t a part of our intervention. However, during this reporting session, we decided to extend our work at Gram Panchayats by reaching out to mothers’ groups, men’s group such as farmer’s club and also to PRI members. Our regular meetings withMother’s, PRI/Male & Youth Groups, helped narrow the gaps that may have existed between the students and their communities. On an average we reached to 1541 community members per month through these meetings. We initiated regular meetings with mothers groups, youth groups, and PRI/male influencer groups. We have also been able to reach out to parents both within and outside the range of the TkT intervention. However, ensuring regular participation from PRI/male members & youth groups is still a bit of a challenge. 

B)   Improved ownership of communities through community mobilisation: We believe learning is a continuous process. During this reporting period, we modified our community mobilisation efforts to fill the gaps that were identified in the model in the previous years. Earlier, we were mobilising people through video vans however, we realised that many men weren’t participating in the activity as they had to go to work during the day. We also realised that there was limited participation of women in such events. Therefore, during this reporting period, to overcome this challenge and to improve participation, we used tools that fit the cultural context of Haryana better. We conducted late evening community meetings called Ratri Choupals, in 20 Gram Panchayats (village councils) of Rohtak and Jhajjar districts of Haryana. Within 20 days, we conducted 2 rounds of Ratri Choupal which had 80 shows (40 Street Play shows and 40 Muppet Theatre shows in 20 gram panchayats) and reached approximately 46,766 people including school students (in community), frontline workers, government officials and other community members. Officials from various government departments like Health, Women and Child Development (WCD), National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) and District level departments participated and appreciated Breakthrough’s initiative. 

In addition to the increased level of ownership from the government and communities, the new as well as old batch of batch of TkT students continue to organise and participate in the event and also mobilise their parents, friends and neighbours in a consistent manner. Ratri Choupals have therefore, not only proven to be more cost-effective, but also more impactful.

Media & Digital Strategy:

During this reporting period, the digital media strategy focused on establishing links for sustainable cycle of change. 

 All our initiatives were focussed to spread awareness about our Taaron Ki Toli programme and activities done on the ground and we created advocates for the cause. This was done through films, online campaigns and a dissemination event. The following are the key outcomes:

• Gathered evidence for the impact through films and research projects: We created two documentaries (Legion of Stars and I’ll be the Light) based on the stories of change that we witnessed during the 3 years of the project. ‘Legion of Stars’ is a film on the story of a group of school girls in Haryana and how they claimed their right to compete in the game of Kabaddi by breaking the regressive societal norms.  ‘I’ll be the Light’ is a documentary on the life story of a student named Guddi, who reasoned with her family not to get her married early. We also invited acclaimed global research organization, J-Pal (Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab) to conduct an impact assessment of the Taaron Ki Toli programme over a period of 2.5 years with a massive sample of 14,000 students across 314 government schools.
• Published and promoted the evidence gathered from project research nationally:We organised a dissemination event to share the key findings from the J-PAL evaluation of our project and invited key people from civil society organizations, media, researchers and academicians. We also did a weeklong social media activity as a pre-buzz to the dissemination event. As a part of this, we released Legion of Stars and I’ll be the Light documentary. We shared two of the Most Significant Change Theory (MSCT) stories, picked from real life incidents of two star kids from Taaron Ki Toli. These stories highlighted how Tanu and Himani learned to question age old norms about gender stereotypes and helped in creating an environment in which girls can be free and live a better life in form of factoid video. The dissemination also helped in opening up potential partnerships for scaling-up the programme.

I hope you were as happy reading these highlights as we have been in conducting these interventions with the firm belief of brining about change. 

Do give our evaluation report a read, you'll be delighted to see how you too contributed in this mammoth effort.

Thanking you always,

With deep gratitude,

Jocelyn

• Final Evaluation Report (PDF)