ProgrammesClosed

Learning Communities

Adolescent Girls Leadership

Learning Communities (LC) is a community-based intervention that fosters the vision to create a space that nurtures and empowers girls as leaders within their own ecosystem. The Learning Communities position and support adolescent girls as change-makers. The Learning Communities in Delhi has completed two successful cycles which place young girls in leadership and community intervention roles. For TYPF, the LC cohort consists of 12 dynamic community leaders. TYPF has been consistently engaging with the SNN community, which comprises 150 families since 2008. Though SNN is a part of the larger Nizamuddin Basti in Central Delhi, it is located slightly away from the rest of the area, thus isolating the migrant community that lives there from the governmental and non-governmental interventions in place in Nizamuddin Basti.

Introduction to Blending Spectrum

Essentially, the Learning Communities is a community-based intervention that seeks to put adolescent girls at the forefront of community intervention and leadership building. The vision of the programme is to empower young girls to overcome the barriers that keep them from reaching their potential through joint action and support for girl leadership. The overarching outcome that the programme seeks to achieve is to empower girls to become decision-makers and advocates on issues that are critical to their lives. These issues include speaking out against restrictions on their rights, confronting gender-based violence and improving their mobility and public safety in their communities.

The  Learning Communities Delhi chapter started in 2017 to strengthen and amplify voices of adolescent girls in the capital. The five partner organisations in Delhi are Chintan, FAT, JOSH, Swechha, and the YP Foundation. Two consecutive cycles of Learning Communities have successfully been completed in Delhi. The girl leaders from the five communities, with support and collaboration with the partner organisations, have taken up an array of community interventions in this time.

  • Delhi - Sundar Nagar Nursery
  1. The Safety Audit 2016: led by youth leaders in 3 urban slum communities of Delhi, it identified the existing gaps in the services and physical infrastructure using a smartphone app. The initiative has also helped facilitate dialogue between the community members and government representatives.
  2. Masti Ka Din is an annual event organised under the Blending Spectrum programme, which celebrates the year-long journey of the volunteers. In 2017, this event marked 15 years of TYPF and was attended by over 300 people.
  3. Meri Suraksha, Mera Haq: led by 16 youth leaders in SNN and the Blending Spectrum Team, the 2016 Safety Audit was revisited in 2017. The project was carried out over 3 weeks in the SNN and Nizamuddin Basti area, where they documented and mapped out ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ areas using cameras. The project concluded with an exhibition of the Audit Team’s findings, which they used to advocate with community members and with the local authorities for safer public spaces and improved sanitation. See pictures here.
  4. Samvidhan Live- The Jagrik Project: In October 2016, TYPF partnered with Com-Mutiny – The Youth Collective to introduce and implement the Jagrik Project, which aims to build young people’s awareness of their fundamental rights and duties as citizens of India. The project engaged young people between the ages of 12 and 25 over 8 weeks to undertake a series of community and self-reflective tasks associated with different Fundamental Rights and Duties.  Watch the videos of their learning here!
  5. In 2015-16, the programme trained 12 peer educators who further conducted 40 training sessions on Life Skills. A total of 150 children and adolescents between 5-17 years (98 girls and 52 boys) were sensitised on the issues of gender-based discrimination, violence and health and hygiene.
  6. Conducting a community level survey spearheaded entirely by the girls cohort from different partner organizations. The survey was about gender discrimination and sexual violence which the girls conducted in their respective communities.

In the past cycles, LC Delhi has engaged with different community level interventions on issues that the girls chose, like gender based discrimination, violence, mobility, etc. through diverse creative mediums like street plays, forum theatre, dance, music, raps, human library, etc. LC Delhi also launched its first social media campaign “Girls Can”. Using the hashtag #ThisGirl, the Learning Community girl leaders asked all girls to share how simple things like walking, talking and making decisions don’t always feel possible for girls, and to tell the world that “girls can”. The campaign was promoted offline as well. Currently, the Learning Communities Delhi chapter is going through a phase of extensive evaluation and planning. In December 2020, a thorough review of both Delhi cycles of the Learning Communities was conducted by an independent consultant. This review is currently being used to formulate a new plan of action for the upcoming cycle of the LC Delhi chapter.

Search
Donate
Donate