Give GIRLS in India a CHANCE at life

Dear Donor,

As updated in Jan 2018, our first batch of students graduated from the TKT programme. We have continued the programme with the next batch and are happy to share the info and updates on the same.

TAARON KI TOLI(TkT)- A School Based Gender Sensitization Program in Haryana:

The project activities during this quarter was conducted at different levels which included classroom sessions, Teacher trainings and Engagement with Older Cohort of TkT.

We maintained a common narrative across all our interventions (in classroom session as well as in teachers training) that focused on building the negotiation skills of students and enabling their institutions through teachers training to build favourable spaces that allow them to thrive and grow. For this, we used audio stories of Breakthrough’s Mascot- Pinki and Punkaj created for the main Adolescent Empowerment Program.

We reached out to each of the stakeholder groups in the following ways:

1)   Classroom Sessions:

The school based intervention program addresses the issue of gender based discrimination through and gender and life skill module named Taaron Ki Toli.

During this quarter, we used audio stories in the classroom sessions around negotiation skill in different situation. These stories are part of Breakthrough’s Mascot (Pinki and Pankaj) created for the main Adolescent Empowerment Program (AEP) across all intervention states to create a visual entity for the adolescents. After testing these stories, we found that it fits very well into the TkT modules and we could use the same tools across all stakeholders of the project. All the stories were thought provoking and encouraged participants to recognize gender discrimination & stereotypes and how to build negotiation skills in various situations. These sessions were facilitated in class 6^th, 7^th & 8^th in 80 schools. The outcome of these sessions were that students listened to the stories carefully, gave their feedback and it lead to an open discussion in the class.

We also believe that teachers are important stakeholders in the program, hence we engaged two teachers as coordinators in the school and also planned 2 half-yearly trainings in each district. This would help orient them to the issues and program and also to seek their support in the program.

Outreach: Number of Schools Reached: 80 in four districts (Rohtak, Jhajjar, Sonipat & Panipat) of Haryana

We have reached 3867 students monthly through TkT sessions

2)   Training of School Teachers:

In School Based Intervention Program, working with students in classroom through TkT session does not complete the cycle. We need to engage the school staff to create an ecosystem for change and support in smooth functioning of the program at the school level. Orientation around the issue of gender, gender based discrimination and how this is impacting the process of social change which needs to be addressed.

We conducted teachers training in this quarter- in Jhajjar district. We also approached education department to send a circular for teachers training. We have successfully conducted teachers training in Jhajjar district in May 28^th, 2018. To enhance the pace and process we will do the next round of training at the school level. This will help in building a conducive environment at the school involve more teachers or all staff which will create much more conducive environment for the TkT students and to bring whole institution at the same page. Teachers training conducted in Jhajjar where 26 teachers, Principals and BEOs participated from 14 schools. After introduction of the participants and brief about Breakthrough we screened a short film called Legion of Stars(Link) which is a story of ‘Taaron ki Toli’ students from Gudhan School (Rohtak) who took a very courageous step of challenging the set norm where girls are not allowed to play games like Kabaddi. This is indicative of the change we are working towards. The training addressed the difference between gender and sex which was identified correctly by 84% of the participant teachers through a pre- post test. 

3)   Engagement with Older Cohort of TkT at Panipat:

TkT stars has three important milestones or phases in this journey of identifying, acknowledging and raising voice against gender based discrimination and violence. As long term goal, we always expected that all these TkT stars will challenge and raise their voice against the discrimination and violence in their social sphere as agents of change. It is overwhelming to share that TkT stars from older cohort at Panipat district in Haryana after a theatre workshop has demonstrated their action, our team member conducted a 7 days’ theatre workshop as a post engagement process with 15 TkT stars. Choreography on BEKAUF AZAD HAI RAHNA MUJHE and a street play addressing the issue of gender based discrimination was prepared by the workshop by the TkT stars. This was performed on 6 different public platforms where different stakeholders and community witnessed this. In addition to youth you attended workshop, more TkT graduated students joined from adjacent villages. These adolescents together form a big team of (40) change agent. They also actively participated with BT generation in public protest organised by different organisation, to raise collective voice against recent cases of sexual and communal violence.

We hope that these updates help you understand our work better and we look forward to your continous support to make our dream a reality.

Thanks and Regards,

Aman Chhabra.