Savita Ali, a lawyer, is a Dalit human rights activist who has more than six years of meticulous, on-ground experience working on the rights of Dalit communities, local governance, and women’s empowerment. She is a skilled trainer who specialises in the empowerment and upskilling of Dalit women and their leadership development. At the core of her work, Savita strives to ensure access to basic human rights for Dalits and other minority communities. She is an effective communicator and excels in relationship management with a wide variety of stakeholders, such as government line department officials and consultants, development sector professionals and journalists.
When Harshita, Programme Officer at Restless Development India, asked Savita to narrate her experience of working with the Go Nisha Go (GNG) project, she said that it was a refreshingly new learning experience for her. “This is the first time I have worked on something like this. Using a digital game as a means of information and knowledge dissemination tool to create awareness was great, and a unique experience for us. Despite the challenges we faced, the journey was truly transformational.”
At first, reaching out to schools and communities to talk about young girls' problems was a huge task. But with time, we helped them understand and accept the realities of young girls' hardships. It helped us to build good relations with teachers, HeadMasters (HMs), and students. The changemakers and Youth Leaders were always there to work and bring change in the project areas.”
Talking about their partnership with GNG and major achievements for Eva Foundation, Savita explained that during the International Youth Day celebrations, they promoted the game and how it could become a fundamental tool in youth’s true realisation of their potential. They explained how the game could help youth build their self-confidence and independence in deciding for themselves and negotiating for a better future. “Eva Foundation achieved this by creating Youth Addas, which were community awareness events, through which they reached different schools, multiple locations, semi-rural slum settlements, and covered many blocks, thus expanding the reach of their own organisation, as well as spreading the word about GNG among a larger audience,” says Savita. “We discussed menstruation, women's rights, gender equality, and SRHR in these Youth Addas,” she added. Considering these concepts are still shrouded in stigma and stereotypes in several parts of the country, Savita considers it a huge success to have created Youth Addas in which we had these conversations freely.
As to the response of the community they worked with and the process of involving the stakeholders, Savita said, “While working on GNG with several other organizations for either collaboration or mobilization purposes, such as the Tabeer Foundation, Urj Foundation, Aman Biradri Rainbow home, we could build good relationships with them. We had the opportunity to share our strengths and work proactively toward achieving our goals. We interacted with HMs and teachers regularly, and they were supportive. Once, we went to an international school, and to our surprise, students and teachers already knew a lot about GNG. This was possible through our strong presence in the field - we could create awareness among our audience, and they were eager to know more.”
She added that the GNG Youth Leaders were encouraged and validated for the work they were doing at the schools they visited. Not only did this boost their morale, but their parents were also proud of them, and rendered more support to the GNG cause as a result. “The impact was not only seen in schools or project areas, but also among the Youth Leaders and their peers. Challenges were there, but we strived to make meaningful changes in the community and chose to look at the brighter side,” she said.
While GNG’s central effort is to increase knowledge and agency of young girls, Eva Foundation, a partner organisation, also benefited greatly from this collaboration. They were primarily working on the legal rights of women and youth, and GNG was a one-of-a-kind project for them in the last three years. Before GNG, the organisation had never ventured into this space, fearing lack of skills, limited resources, and support. “This was our first time working on SRHR. We worked to build our capacity as an organization, and individual, personal capacity as well. We looked at it through the lens of women and the right to health and education, and co-relate things,” explained Savita. Another important learning was that when they talked about girls and their rights, they realised that it was essential to also include boys and men, and to provide them with proper guidance on matters like menstruation, sexual rights, reproductive health, etc. “Excluding one gender cannot make any positive impact. This project helped us build relationships with stakeholders, and liaisons with some local government officials. We believe we are now equipped to organize and implement another such programme.” said Savita.
GNG generated a positive impact for Eva Foundation, Savita said that she is proud of how the organisation has about 1,700 young people and community members in their network through GNG. “Following our association with Go Nisha Go, we are confident enough to expand our reach and build many more Youth Leaders down the years. We now understand the importance of working with like-minded organizations to make our work even more impactful,” she concluded.
Author bio: Harshita Thapak is a Programme Officer with Restless Development India, based out of Pakur in Jharkhand.