Support A Young Girls Leadership Academy in India

The SELF Academy has expanded to different regions and incorporated emerging issues for young women and girls in the last 10 years. In November 2024, the academy was adapted for CREA’s Gender and WaSH program where we engaged with daughters of sanitation workers in India. The institute was designed as a safe space to address the intersection of caste, gender, and occupational and structural exclusion.

CREA’s Gender and WaSH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) program focuses on intersections of gender and sanitation. Since 2021, CREA has strengthened the capacity of 12 partners working in WaSH across India to challenge myths, biases, and power dynamics in the WaSH sector by centering the voices of structurally excluded groups.

A pivotal moment during this 10 day residential workshop was the session on understanding how caste shapes identities and perpetuates systematic exclusion. This theme was followed through in the academy’s interactive leadership and storytelling sessions where participants used storytelling tools (such as the “story of us”) to articulate their experiences and aspirations, creating a powerful, emotional exchange that validated their struggles and fostered solidarity. They shared their narratives of battling caste discrimination and the struggles of being from families rooted in sanitation work—a profession linked to caste in South Asia. Art and artivism have been key components of the SELF Academy, where it is used as a transformative platform to challenge oppressive norms and build collective solidarity.