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Crazy Girls Gang! How crazy is that? At a meeting with a group of Kishore Balika Sanghams (KBS) or Adolescent Girls Committees from across the project in December 2023, the leader of the first group introduced their KBS as “We are the Crazy Girls Gang of Thanda”. We were both surprised and curious as this was a far cry from the names that the groups had given themselves earlier. Names like Mother Theresa, Rani Laxmi Bai, Savitribai Phule and PV Sindhu - all iconic women who had stood for service, nationalist fervour, education or those who had excelled in sports. But now, from village after village, the groups introduced themselves as ‘Rowdy Girls’, ‘Attitude Queens’, ‘Rising Stars’ and so on, leaving us wanting to know more about this change in mood amongst the adolescent girls in the programme. Where did this energy and attitude come from?



When questioned about these names the responses of the various groups were illustrative. The ‘Rowdy Girls’ group said “Why must boys be labelled as rowdies? We are equal to them and we want to outperform boys”. In the same vein, the ‘Attitude Queens’ explained that girls are generally silent and are not taken seriously. If they had to fight for their rights they needed to have a superior “attitude” like queens.  This was much like other groups that call themselves ‘Princess’, and ‘Veera Vanitha (Empowered Women)’. The KBS that calls itself ‘Rising Stars’ tells us that they have aspirations for education, whereas names like ‘Amulya (precious)’, ‘Ambedkar’ and ‘Lotus’ are all giving a message to society that there is no stopping girls. The ‘Youth Self Committee’ are making a point that girls need to be self-confident and rely only on themselves. Similarly, the ‘Crazy Girls Gang of Thanda’ are iconoclasts in their own way. A thanda is a tribal settlement and all these girls belong to tribal communities that have traditionally been marginalised and excluded from mainstream society. They want to convey that they are inferior to none, they are active and their spirit is limitless. And so, of course, there is also a group that calls itself ‘Freedom’ – they are aiming to respond to injustice and achieve freedom.

 

These names signify a clear shift in mood and self-perception among the adolescent girls. To understand how this has happened, one has to look at the development of the KBS’s in every village included in the project as well as the supporting activities that are a part of the adolescent girls’ Ika Chaalu programme. The KBS consists of girls aged 11-18 and includes girls both in and out of schools. The groups meet at regular intervals – generally once a month - the field mobilizers are always present and provide them with information and training on gender rights, existing laws and the policies of the State. They are introduced to local bodies like the police, village panchayats, Childline and other relevant institutions. They are sensitised to issues of structural inequities and patriarchal norms and are provided with the tools to address them at every step so that they can move forward towards gender equality and education.

 

The KBS is also a safe space where the girls share experiences of discrimination at home, in the community and in schools and come up with ideas for how they can make small shifts in the attitude of family members, teachers and the community on gender equality. They are encouraged to draw a map of their village, identifying streets, temples, Anganwadi centres, post offices, schools, gram panchayats, ration shops and other resources available in the village. This is also an occasion for discussing their lack of mobility within the village and marking places that they see as safe and unsafe. Gaining strength from each other, they start venturing out into public spaces that they had never been to before and thus claim their freedom of movement.

Those completing class 10 and secondary school education start mapping/exploring opportunities for higher education and the courses they could opt for. They also take on the task of identifying school dropouts and girls who attend schools irregularly, and start motivating them to get re-enrolled in schools. With time, the girls in the groups have gained the courage to report on issues such as sexual harassment, early marriage, problems in schools, lack of transportation for going to school to Gram Panchayats and Child Rights Protection Forums and seek their support in solving these issues.

During the Pandemic and accompanying lockdowns the KBS’s shifted online. WhatsApp groups became a vehicle for the girls to keep in touch with each other and with the field mobilizers. The lockdown was a difficult time for most families, with lack of work, and shortages of cash and food (See Corona Stories and Why Can’t they Include the History). Girls who were earlier going to school were sent to work in exploitative conditions and some parents started arranging marriages for their daughters. The WhatsApp groups allowed them to share their problems and alert the mobilizers, who could then take action, if there was talk of their own or some other girls’ marriage being arranged.

The girls emerged from the lockdowns with an acute awareness of how easily the hard-won gains of the project in changing gender norms could be reversed and with a realization that it was up to them to not let this happen. With this resolve and renewed confidence, the girls met the Sarpanches (elected heads of local government) to convince them of their need for a dedicated space where they could conduct meetings, start a library, subscribe to a newspaper, buy books for general reading, have a reading room and plan for campaigns on girls’ issues (See Gram Panchayats as Allies).  Some groups conducted local surveys on employment, job opportunities and the educational status of women versus men. In addition, they organized public functions on Independence Day, Republic Day and participated in flag hoisting – activities that were usually undertaken only by boys. There were also groups that conducted programmes along with boys and joined them in sports and games.

On their own initiative, the groups have taken collective action and submitted petitions to authorities for redressal of their grievances, they have held protest demonstrations about the lack of buses to transport them to secondary schools, about the state of toilets and lack of drinking water in schools, the appointment of school teachers, and for stopping sexual harassment on the streets and child marriage. They  have spoken  fearlessly to the police department when taking up specific issues of violence, child marriage and sexual harassment and abuse. They have achieved a measure of success in all these actions. These interactions with functionaries have given them confidence in public speaking, leadership, and interaction with the media.




More recently, the members of the KBSs have decided to consolidate their groups at the State level calling themselves Telangana Aadapillala Samanatva Samakhya  ( TASS – Telangana Adolescent Girls Federation for Gender Equality). Their plan is to become a state-wide movement so they can share their learning on gender and education rights in non-project areas. This is an exciting development and we will track the progress of this movement that has developed organically in future blogs.

What’s in a name indeed? What appears a bit “crazy” at first glance is in fact a reflection of the newfound confidence with which the girls are imbued. It is a loud and clear message that they will do everything in their power to be on par with boys and to be treated as their equals by their families, teachers and the community. These names are the next step on their journey of seeking gender justice and equality.



Part 2: Data Collected by Council for Social Development



The Hyderabad chapter of the Council for Social Development (CSD) published a research report in 2023 entitled “A Study of MV Foundations’s Intervention: Gender Equality and Adolescent Girls’ Education”. This report offers an independent validation for the evidence of norm change in the adolescent girls’ programme and forms a sequel to the information collected by MVF Field Mobilizers.

CSD collected data from 19 programme villages across 3 districts as well as from a control group of 10 villages across 4 districts to provide a comparative framework for impact assessment. The aim of the study was to understand the transformation brought about by the MVF intervention during 2015-2019 in the lives of adolescent girls before the Covid pandemic, and to assess any reversal of gains in relation to gender discrimination in the family, community, and public spaces during the lockdowns. The study found significant differences in the situation of girls between the programme and control villages on a variety of variables including the status of girls in the family, in school and in the community and in resisting early marriage. Some data from this report is presented below.


Consumption of food, and girls’ mobility constitute two important markers of gender discrimination within the family. Regarding consumption of food (in terms of girls eating last, getting smaller portions of special dishes, and being consulted about what to cook), 44% percent of respondents in the project area reported that there was discrimination against girls in the pre- intervention period. However, after the intervention this came down to 4.1%. An important observation is that the pandemic did not result in any perceptible negative impact. In the control group, 64.2% reported discrimination against girls and this did not change substantially during the pandemic.


Girls’ mobility has also shown remarkable improvements in the project area. Only 7% of girls were allowed to move around freely outside the home prior to the intervention. This improved significantly to 96% post intervention and was not negatively impacted by Covid. In the control group, 75.3% of girls reported restrictions on their movements outside the house pre-, and during, Covid Similar improvements and differences with the control group can be observed with regard to the allotment of time given to girls as opposed to boys for study and play and for decision-making within the family.


The gender-awareness activities conducted by MVF with families, in schools and in the community have resulted in positive changes in the attitude of parents, schools and the community towards adolescent girls. As many as 73.2% of parents said that they now see boys and girls as equals; 99.6% allow their daughters to attend the adolescent girls’ meetings and think that girls’ empowerment is good. The parents acknowledge that girls can now talk freely and without fear, they are taking on challenges, competing equally with boys and openly discussing issues of physical and sexual harassment and abuse. Regarding early marriage, the girls stated that earlier they had not been in a position to oppose parental decisions about their marriage and were forced to succumb to the will of their parents; only 2% reported that such discussions had taken place. Post intervention, 64% of respondents reported that there was a discussion about their marriage, but they could oppose their parents and continue their education. In 40% of these cases the parents respected the girls wishes, while the remaining sought the help of MVF mobilisers, teachers, anganwadi workers, police, Childline, the KBS and the Village Panchayat to intervene in the matter of their early marriage. During Covid, adolescent girls came under enormous pressure to get married, but they could take the help of KBS and MVF mobilisers to convince their parents otherwise. Significantly, 47% of girls actively contributed to stopping other marriages during the pandemic by informing people who could help these girls. The girls in the control group had no such support and had to give in to early marriage.


Schools are another major arena were MVF works to combat gender discrimination. Before MVFs intervention, 94.4% of girls reported experiencing discriminatory behaviour from teachers; this went down significantly to 5.6% post intervention and did not change as a result of Covid. In the control group, however, 76.5% reported discrimination pre covid and the figure did not change much at 74.1% during Covid. School enrolments for adolescent girls also showed improvements. While the majority of girls in the project area were reported to be enrolled in schools in the pre intervention period, 40% of these were in fact not attending school regularly as they were helping with domestic chores or were engaged in wage labour. This figure went down to 10% after the intervention. On the other hand, in the non-project area 91.4% of total respondents reported they were enrolled in school, but 50% of these stated they were unable to attend school regularly in the pre-Covid period.


Responses were also collected from various members of the community to assess their attitudes towards adolescent girls. This report clearly shows positive improvements in attitudes in favour of girls in the post-intervention period. More than half the respondents stated that it is the girls’ choice what clothes they wear, a significant 95% agreed that there was no problem about boys and girls playing sports together and a similar number (90%) agreed that activities conducted for girls’ empowerment were working. The contrast with the control group could not be more stark; here, the majority of respondents said that it was not acceptable for girls to wear modern dresses and 75% felt that it was good for boys and girls to maintain distance and not play games together.


The evidence from the CSD report confirms two findings: first, that the MVF villages posted far better outcomes for adolescent girls than what was observed in the control villages; and second, that these gains in the MVF villages were sustained despite the constraints and impositions of the Covid pandemic and its lockdowns. These positive outcomes can be explained by the collective power of the effective and multi-layered gender norm-change strategies implemented by the MV Foundation under the Ika Chaalu project.






Part 1: Data Collected by MVF Field Mobilisers


There is credible and mounting evidence from the field that adolescent girls in the programme areas are now able to exercise agency and demand their rights; parents have stopped forcing girls into early marriage and allow them to follow their aspiration for getting a secondary education; the functionaries of the system – school teachers, police officials, anganwadi workers - are defending the rights of girls; even traditionally conservative bodies like caste panchayats and priests are coming round to the idea of arguing against early marriage and refusing to solemnise marriages of minors.


The girls get the strength to stand up for their rights when they know that they have persons in the community, among members of Gram Panchayats, women’s groups and teachers who show concern for them and will support them. In turn, it is the strength and firm resolve of the girls that gives an impetus to the community and members of various forums to go the extra mile in favour of adolescent girls. The girls’ struggle also strengthens the response of public institutions wherein the functionaries of the State find themselves compelled to address urgent and concrete challenges posed by the girls. They can no longer hide behind convenient arguments about structural constraints, tradition, culture, or the poverty of the parents but are obligated to utilise the policies and legal instruments at their disposal to protect girls’ rights in a rights-based perspective; there is now an imperative to respond in real time. Children’s participation and exercise of agency thus becomes the indispensable pivot in bringing about a transformation in their own lives and in building new social norms in the community.


Data collected by MVF mobilisers for purposes of tracking and responding to the needs of every girl in the programme provides quantitative evidence of successful norm change. MVF data shows that when it started its interventions with adolescent girls in 2015, there were 355 girls who completed class 10 in the four Mandals included in the project (see Table 1). By 2022 this number had increased to 513 – a distinct rise even after taking into account a nominal rate of increase of local population. Significantly, in Atmakur and Nuthankal Mandals more girls were completing class 10 than boys by 2022.




The fact of being enrolled in class 10 does not automatically mean that all of them will take the Class 10 Board examination. The bureaucratic processes involved can be intimidating and hostile, pushing them out of school as there are innumerable challenges that a poor, marginalised, first-generation learner has to overcome to register for this exam. The first step for the mobilizers is to get the list of names of all girls who are enrolled in class 10 and to ensure that all of them are prepared to take the Board examination. A final tracking is done to make sure that they apply for the hall ticket as many need support to fill in the application form, get the school to forward it to the Board and more importantly to pay the examination fees. The examination fee for the Board is so high that many children find it unaffordable. Some may have to borrow the money and for those who are just not able to raise the funds, a special letter is sent to the education Commissioner requesting a fee waiver. The next step is to check if the names of the girls and their fathers are correctly spelt in the hall ticket. Some girls may need help for transportation to reach the examination center. The final step is to check the results of the class 10 Board examination and give confidence to those girls who have failed in one subject or more to re-take the examination. Clearing the class 10 Board examination is the gateway for moving to the next stage of education.


Table -1 Class 10 Completion of Board Examination 2015 to 2022


Years

2015



2019



2022



Mandals

Boys

Girls

Total

Boys

Girls

Total

Boys

Girls

Total

Shankarpalli

100

94

194

80

94

174

133

120

233

Vikarabad

97

88

185

127

100

227

197

158

355

Athmakur

73

69

142

75

71

147

80

87

167

Nuthankal

121

104

225

117

108

225

142

148

290

Total

391

355

746

399

373

773

552

513

1045


 

For those who have passed, the mobilizers follow up to enable them in their pursuit of secondary education. The same effort is put into following up with girls at the secondary level. MVF’s efforts in tracking girls, motivating them to continue their higher education, and facilitating their admission into colleges resulted in 533 girls going on to undergraduate studies in 2022, while only 67 girls had done so in 2015 (see Table 2). Significantly, from only 6 girls admitted into professional courses like engineering, pharmacy, and teacher training in 2015, by the year 2022 this number had gone up to 42 girls (see Table 3). These statistics point forcefully to dramatic improvements.


Table-2-Admission into Undergraduate Courses

Years

2015



2019



2022



Mandals

Boys

Girls

Total

Boys

Girls

Total

Boys

Girls

Total

Shankarpalli

17

21

38

76

68

144

92

102

194

Vikarabad

10

3

13

29

55

84

124

120

244

Athmakur

27

18

45

47

41

88

141

119

260

Nuthankal

23

25

48

75

73

148

304

212

516

Total

77

67

144

227

237

464

661

553

1214

 


Table-3-Admission to Professional Courses (Engineering, BPharm, B.Ed)

Years

2015



2019



2022



Mandals

Boys

Girls

Total

Boys

Girls

Total

Boys

Girls

Total

Shankarpalli

1

4

5

10

5

15

16

17

34

Vikarabad

0

0

0

0

1

1

7

10

17

Athmakur

3

1

3

5

6

11

15

5

20

Nuthankal

3

1

4

0

1

1

20

10

30

Total

7

6

12

15

13

28

58

42

101


 

For MVF mobilisers, these are not just statistics to arrive at measurement of success, but a basis for planning for each adolescent girl. These are real, dynamic data which facilitate their efforts of reaching out to every girl and ensuring that they complete their secondary education and move on to the next level. They are a reflection of real changes in the life of girls and their families.  There is a steady, perceptible change in the manner in which girls have moved ahead with their aspirations for education. This is only possible because every school, the entire community, and the parents have partnered in, and are committed to, this process of changing social norms towards gender equality.





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