Strengthening Adolescent Girls with Sex Education

Since the last quarter, Kolkata Sanved has focused on the strategic integration of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) across all its programmes and awareness campaigns as outlined in the previous report. Kolkata Sanved has moved towards planning to practice by ensuring that SRHR is meaningfully embedded within the ongoing program activities, rather than being implemented as a separate or standalone program.

SRHR has integrated into the sessions of regular programs on mental health and wellbeing, leadership development and empowerment, and trauma healing and recovery. DMT practitioners introduced SRHR topics in a need-based and age-appropriate manner, depending on participants’ readiness. The focus primally remained on creating safe, respectful and non-judgmental spaces where participants could ask questions and reflect on their own experiences without hesitation.

Key SRHR topics covered during the sessions included understanding sex and gender, gender identity, and everyday gender-based stressors. Participants also learned basic information about their body parts, menstrual cycle and reproduction, body hygiene, safe spaces, consent, and basic awareness of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). These topics were discussed at a foundational level and always connected with mental wellbeing, self-care, communication, and decision-making skills.

The integrated approach reached a total of 878 participants across multiple programs. 35 participants were engaged through the Healing and Wellbeing program. The Sampoornata Wellbeing Club reached 726 participants, while 37 participants were engaged through Trauma Recovery program. Additionally, 80 participants were reached through the DMTLDA (Dance Movement Therapy Leadership Development Academy) program. This wide reach demonstrates that the integrated SRHR approach is scalable and flexible and can be adapted across different programs and contexts.

A key focus of this strategy was also capacity building of DMT practitioners. A comprehensive sexuality education training  was conducted for the required DMT practitioners in Maharashtra. This training supported the practitioners to deepen their understanding of SRHR, gender and wellbeing and it helped them to integrate these themes within the child care institutions. This step was important to ensure quality and consistency of SRHR integration across geographies.

Several early changes were observed through this strategy. Participants showed increased comfort in talking about their bodies, emotions and gender-related experiences. Many participants were better able to link body awareness with mental wellbeing and self-care practices. Practitioners also noted increased participation during group discussions.

In the next phase, Kolkata Sanved will continue strengthening practitioner capacity, gradually deepen SRHR engagement for groups that are ready and further strengthen youth leadership and peer-learning spaces.

Overall, by embedding SRHR within existing programmes, Kolkata Sanved continues to build a holistic and sustainable approach towards empowerment, wellbeing and gender equity.

Kolkata Sanved has embarked on a new strategic direction to consciously integrate Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) into the core pillars of our interventions. This shift stems from our recognition that SRHR is deeply interlinked with psychosocial wellbeing, gender equity, and holistic development. Our evolving approach reflects both the learnings from the Adolescent Girls  and the urgent need to address adolescent health challenges—particularly among adolescent girls—through a framework that combines rehabilitation, prevention, and systemic change.

Why This Shift in Strategy

Our field experience revealed that addressing SRHR in isolation—without situating it within broader frameworks of gender, power, and inequality—limits the potential for transformative change. For example, community discussions surfaced that along with early marriage, teenage pregnancies were on the rise. Youth participants themselves emphasized that single-focus SRHR sessions would not be sufficient unless rooted in an analysis of structural gender-based discrimination and inequities.
Therefore, through our strategic planning process, we made a deliberate decision to weave SRHR into all interventions, ensuring that it is not a standalone module but rather a sustained and integral part of our broader gender and wellbeing framework.

Capacity Building for Systemic Change

To ensure the strength of this shift, Kolkata Sanved has invested significantly in capacity building at multiple levels:

For Dance Movement Therapy Practitioners and Sanved Staff:

• A gender audit was recently conducted with DMT practitioners and organizational staff. This process served both as capacity strengthening and perspective building, enabling DMT practitioners to embed SRHR more effectively into Dance Movement Therapy (DMT)-based interventions.

For Adolescent Girls and Youth Leaders:

• Through a series of knowledge-building and perspective-building sessions, adolescent girls, youth leaders, and community stakeholders are exploring the intersections of gender, sexuality, and power dynamics. These workshops build on earlier SRHR inputs, deepening understanding while facilitating adolescent and youth  leadership and peer-learning spaces.

The Workshops: A Multi-Layered Approach

Kolkata Sanved has developed and facilitated structured training workshops combining sexual health as part of self-healing and community healing—an approach central to our Sampoornata Model. The workshops had the following objectives:

• Introduce structured training modules on gender, power, intersectionality, and unconscious bias, tailored for grassroots adolescent girls and youth leaders.
• Revisit and strengthen basic concepts around gender and sexuality.
• Identify gender-based stressors experienced by adolescents and youth in their communities.
• Develop skills and resources to respond effectively to gender-based discrimination.
• Facilitate peer-learning spaces and dialogue circles, focusing on SRHR, gender norms, and masculinities.
• Identify pathways of community response to gender discrimination, rooted in collective care.

Reflections and Early Learnings

• Holistic Understanding: Adolescent girls now see SRHR not only as a matter of reproductive health but as part of broader struggles against gender-based discrimination and inequality.
• Youth Leadership: Youth leaders are stepping forward as facilitators of peer-dialogues, making SRHR a community-owned process.
• Intersectional Approach: The integration of SRHR with issues like early marriage, teenage pregnancy, and gendered stressors ensures that interventions address root causes rather than symptoms.
• Strengthened DMT Practitioner Capacity: Our practitioners are increasingly confident in connecting SRHR with psychosocial wellbeing and gender justice, thus strengthening both individual and community resilience.

Way Forward

Going ahead, Kolkata Sanved aims to:

• Consolidate the SRHR-integrated training modules for replication across programs and geographies.
• Strengthen youth-led peer-learning spaces as platforms for dialogue and action on SRHR and gender justice.
• Continue building the capacity of DMT practitioners to integrate SRHR through embodied approaches that link self-empowerment with social change.
• Engage with local stakeholders and influencers to institutionalize SRHR and gender equity approaches within community systems.

Conclusion

This evolving strategy signifies Kolkata Sanved’s commitment to embedding SRHR within a larger ecosystem of care, wellbeing, and gender justice. By combining embodied practices, psychosocial healing, and systemic analysis, we are ensuring that adolescent girls and young people are not just passive recipients of information but are empowered leaders of change within their communities.