Girl leaders are emerging in Jharkhand!

This is about young girls, young voices and the community. And we feel proud to be one of these voices. It’s true when you talk you get solutions. If anyone has proved this statement right, it’s our girls from the Tech Centre in Jharkhand who believe in talking about everything related to their lives and finding solutions to it. When you listen to their dialogue, you know they are taking away something concrete from it. Their conviction is apparent from the very attitude and approach these fearless girls have taken to address the issue of child marriage in their community.

During past few classes, the girls have been sharing that other girls from their community who go to school with them are all married. One of the girls who come to Tech Centre is married too. Discussion is not the only thing they do, they then decided to act upon it and do something concrete and big. They took it in their hands to find a way to abate the problem of child marriage in the area. So, in August 2016, they decided to organize an event at community level around gender discrimination and child marriage to facilitate a conversation around it with their community members. To support the girls’ initiative, the event was organised by our local partner Abhivyakti Foundation in association us. It was motivating for us to see the girls taking such bold steps. They invited their families, neighbors, community members and leaders.

It was a great achievement for us looking at the challenges we faced during the preparations of the event. Compared to the hurdles, the happiness post the event was much greater. The event was held at two places – Kalyandih on the 24th August and Pethiyatad on the 25th August - where various activities like painting, slogan writing, poem recitation, debate, etc., were organised by the girls. Besides our Tech Centre girls, many of their peers from their community participated in these activities. Our girls also prepared a nukkad natak (street play) for the event in a very short span of time. While debating on the topic of child marriage, they vented out their emotions in their words, which made everyone speechless. The themes for slogan writing, poem recitation, debate competition and street play were decided all based on the main issue being highlighted, gender discrimination and child marriage. The community people appreciated the initiative of the girls. Many mothers declared that they have decided to let their girls study as long as they want.

“Sometimes when you’re given hurdles, it makes you more creative in the end.” Our girls lived this quote by Judy Greer in its truest sense. During the event preparations, boys from nearby areas tried to pose difficulties for the girls, catcalling them and making statements like “What is a girl’s honour?” Even though it was demotivating, we decided to sit among these boys’ groups and talk to them. The girls tried to make them understand the purpose behind the event and asked them to support in whatever capacity they can.

“We can do it and we will achieve it.”

From inviting guests for the event to deciding on the agenda, we had mere four days to do all the arrangements. Many things were happening simultaneously. We were worried if an event like this could be organised in such short period, and when we shared this thought with girls, all they said was “we can do it and we will achieve it”. This made our day. The girls planned the event, divided themselves into groups, distributed the work and took the responsibility for almost everything. They managed the stage all by themselves. Organising such an event at community level was a first time experience for all the girls from Jharkhand Tech Centre. However, looking at their enthusiasm and confidence, it didn’t seem so.

Although the execution was smooth, rain played the spoilsport. The event was organised in an open ground and the heavy rain made it all mucky and watery. Even this could not deter our girls’. Few of them started to fill the pits with sand. This event has made us strong and sturdy like a rock. We overcame the boys’ comments and heavy rains to achieve our goal. We were worried that we may not receive much attendance due to the rains, but more than 700 hundred people in total attended the two days!

Working with girls for this event and watching them taking the lead was quite a learning experience for us as young leaders. All through the event our hearts were pounding with the fear that something would go wrong. But there was also a hope that we will achieve it and take it to the end. The credit of this success goes to the girls from our Giridih Tech Centre, the emerging girl leaders of Jharkhand, who worked round the clock to make the event possible.

~ Kahkasha and Rekha, FAT Team members
(This blog has been translated/ written by Harvinder Kaur who handles Communications and Social Media at FAT)