“My buddies said that menstruation is awful. But at the camp, we learned it’s a desirable and natural procedure for ladies. I’ll cross my lower back and tell my friends they have been incorrect,” stated Vijay, a class eight pupil. These are the phrases of Vijay, a category eight student, who attended Fireflies, a camp organized using VOICE Four Girls, an NGO that has been running with youngsters in schools under the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TSWREIS) and Telangana Tribal Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TTWREIS). The societies run residential academic institutions (class five to diploma stage) in the state below the Telangana Ministry of Scheduled Caste Development and the Telangana Ministry of Tribal Welfare.
Recently, they have been doing something quite clean – with the help of VOICE 4 Girls, they may be coaching boys in these schools about menstruation, intellectual health, consent, and more The impact of equality is meditated in Vijay’s phrases. It’s 2019, but in lots of colleges, sexuality training, if it exists inside the first area, is still restricted to a one-off session wherein women are talked to approximate menstruation.
Though the lads are excluded from this dialogue, menstruation turns into all but an open mystery, regularly becoming a remembrance of disgrace for the girls. To cope with this, VOICE 4 Girls organized ‘Fireflies’, a camp for boys to speak about problems like consent, reproductive fitness, intellectual fitness, and so on.] Vijay’s video was shared on Twitter with the aid of RS Praveen Kumar, secretary of TSWREIS as well as TTWREIS, who stressed that empowerment of ladies couldn’t be completed without instructing men about gender and empathy too.
What happens at the camps?
Firefly is an 8-day camp held from May 6 to 13, engaged with 743 adolescent boys from Telangana Social Welfare Schools from around ninety-four locations. The camps have been performed simultaneously in four specific places across Telangana: Husnabad, Tirumalayapalem, Miryalaguda, and Boinapally.
VOICE 4 Girls designs its content material based tn primary research with students. Faiza Khan, who created the curriculum for the lads’ camp, says that the material is rooted inside the boys’ social context and is repeatedly revised primarily based on how college students reply. Further, while it’s far in the main in English, Telugu versions of the books are also to be had. To de-jargonize ideas, terms from the nearby language are used, too.
The camp counselors are typically young university students who are meticulously skilled in class management and use real-life stories to explain difficult concepts. Female counselors train at the women’s and m, ale counselors at the boys’ camps. Students are given curated books, but mastery isn’t restricted to the page. Subjects and thoughts are taught creatively, using skits, games, and sports.
For example, to provoke a verbal exchange around consent, counselors facilitate a pastime where college students split into agencies and give you a skit about making and serving tea. The round conversation consent begins by facilitating a discussion about the soreness of having someone impose a drink when they do not want it, after which movements move on to things like giving hugs and organizing bodily touch. Boys are encouraged to empathize with women’s stories in such eventualities.
Another activity they undertook to provide an explanation for the idea of sufferers blaming boys changed into one wherein they were requested to stay lifestyles in the day of a female, Rani. “They sincerely liked this hobby and got towels to dress up as Rani. Then, they are made to play act instances from her existence wherein she faces violence and is blamed for it. The roleplay with the boy’s aid became notable,” Faiza says. While debriefing after the hobby, Faiza says the men felt empathetic towards girls and skilled a leap forward. “They stated that they had never realized women went via these items,” she says.
A secure area
Laasya says that the studying curve with the Telangana Social Welfare Schools students has been high as they address topics that aren’t talked about or are taboo. So, students are curious to recognize more. The camp has also become a place for reflection and introspection for these young boys. For instance, a boy came here to camp firmly believing that ladies were wrong to wear brief skirts. “The counselor and other kids attempted to cope with him, but he wouldn’t budge. However, his outlook changed by day eight. He got here and advised his counselor that ladies have the right to wear what they want and must not be judged for it.
The transition became quite heartening,” shares Faiza. While those effects are heartening, Praveen Kumar says it’s too early to talk about the long-term period effect. “We are hoping those boys will become more sensitive towards ladies, especially their reviews and biological strategies going ahead. We desire that the youngsters could share what they’ve found out with their buddies and mot, mothers, and her. Fathers plan to continue conducting focus applications on a larger scale in the future.”
Why communicate with boys?
VOICE fFourGirls conducts pastime-based camps in government and inexpensive private schools for 12 to fifteen-year-olds, addressing subjects like fitness, protection, and future planning while simultaneously constructing English speak-abilities and important thinking. It has, in particular, worked with adolescent girls from Telangana Social Welfare Schools for the past five years. However, while carrying out co-ed workshops in the beyond, camp counselors felt the need to speak to boys about ladies’ experiences, says Anusha Bharadwaj,
VOICE 4 Girls Executive Director.
“Fireflies become the primary phase of the lads’ software. It brought them to numerous subjects, which include intellectual health, reproductive fitness, violence, rights, the role of media, and so on. BInthis, ton second section, Supernova, will talk aaboutdecoaboutnder, recognizing socially built masculinity, and gender-primarily based violence, amongst different subjects. TherSupernova also has management aspectshing them to be network leaders,” Laasya Reddy, a Content and Communications Officer at VOICE 4 Girls, tells TNM. “We wish to cause them to imbibe senators who can take steps towards creating an engender-identically.”
Praveen Kumar says that the workshops were a way to encourage young boys to become sensitive, empathetic, and accountable: “Boys:ften convey stereotypical notions around what women can or can’t do. These boys will develop as much as to be guys, husbands, and people. We want them to be better prepared to handle their relationships with women around them. They must be capable of making manner for range anyplace they end up as adults,” he asserts.
