125: How social entrepreneur Anusha Bharadwaj (Voice4Girls)is empowering adolescent girls in India to unlock their potential

The Elephant in the Room

Shownotes:

Reams have been written recently about SDGs, climate change, just transition…… what does it mean in practice? India's National Action Plan on Climate Change emphasises the need for inclusive and sustainable development to ensure it does not fail millions on the margins or without a voice.

It would not be presumptuous to say that most people in world are aware of India’s demographic dividend. At 21% or 253 million, India is also home to the largest adolescent population in the world of which 120 million are girls. For a just transition and for India to reap the benefits of the demographic dividend by unlocking the potential of its youth, it is crucial that they are empowered with knowledge and skills to combat social and economic exclusion.

A majority of India’s adolescent girls are on the margins and face numerous challenges including lack of access to education, domestic work, early marriage and pregnancy and financial dependency. There are a myriad of government initiatives and schemes aimed at keeping this group in education in urban and rural area, but long lasting change will be impossible without addressing the deep rooted cultural norms, expectations and stereotypes.

This is where organisations like VOICE4Girls, step in, they create safe spaces for girls to have critical conversations around their physical and mental health; recognising, preventing and reporting violence and a space where they can dream. This social enterprise led by Anusha Bharadwaj, has impacted over 3,00,000 girls and boys through their work across 12 different Indian states.

In the 125th episode of The 🐘in the Room podcast we spoke about Anusha’s childhood, how it influenced her to step into the social sector, her ambition for Voice4Girls, breaking the cycle of exclusion, deprivation for young girls and boys, the challenges of being a founder. We also spoke about 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾

👉🏾 SoCh for social change an initiative aimed at building leadership capabilities of young social changemakers,

👉🏾 Social entrepreneurship as a powerful force for transforming communities and nations, being hubs of innovation

👉🏾 Context, feminism and feminist leadership

👉🏾 Failures, highlights and role models girls and boys can identify with

And much more in this freewheeling and inspiring conversation.

Head to the podcast to know more about the incredible work being done by Ashoka Fellow, Anusha Bharadwaj and Voice4Girls 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾

Episode Transcript:

Sudha: Good morning, Anusha. Wonderful to have you on the Elephant in the Room podcast today.

Anusha: Hi Sudha, lovely to be here.

Sudha: Let's get started with a quick introduction. Tell us a bit about your childhood, your education, what sort of influences did you have? I'm curious to understand how and why you decided to work in the social sector.

Anusha: Every time somebody asks me this question, some new parts about my family emerges and today what really came up is that I grew up in a South Indian family where education was super important Sudha. In fact, both my great grandfathers were very well educated, one was a medical officer, the other was a maths professor. And I've heard that, even during those times, this is still very British ruled India both my grandmothers, my maternal and my paternal grandmother, both are high school graduates.

Again, something very unusual for girls during those times. Looking closely, I realized that education for girls was a desirable thing for women in my family, because they should get a good marital match, right? Because boys were all very well educated. So, the end goal was getting her married and for that education that will get her married.

And that's the background of my family and my childhood was peppered with the constant efforts to prove that I'm better than the boys at home. In fact, I remembered as I was preparing for this question, that my father used to say very fondly that me as a daughter was a boy trapped in a girl's body because I had all the spirit of the boy is what he said and at that time I didn't understand. I would just be so proud of that. But realizing that I'd set a poor benchmark, this is always like, I also don't want to cry, I as a girl, because I was the only girl amongst my cousins and my own brother. So, there was a lot of being like a boy and better like a boy, I studied engineering, played cricket.

I think it was only when I was pursuing my engineering that I realized that my mind heart was not in it. Though the immediate family was super patriarchal, my parents were very supportive of all my choices.

When I finished my degree, I said, this is the certificate and now I want to, change my career because I'd already started volunteering for social organisations. I was working with a foundation, a CSR that was working with children and teenagers and I was like, this is the path I want to go. So that was my first steps in the social impact sector in 2002 and I've not looked back since. I continued working in that organisation, I did a rural management degree from the Institute of Rural Management in Anand. Worked in, civil society organisations. I worked for the government and UNICEF for a while and then of course my own social entrepreneurship journey with Voice4Girls. I found my own voice and purpose through the work. But yeah, I've never looked back since then and how much of my childhood and all those stereotypes is what, my organisation and my life's work has been in ensuring that girls just realize that they have so much in themselves that there's no competition.

Sudha: Yeah, they don't really have to be like boys, but it's so good to understand how you found your purpose, your calling, so to speak, and how you went into the social sector. I've read so much about, Voice for Girls and the wonderful work that you do. Tell us about its genesis and how you came to this and probably the influences that you've spoken about in your childhood in your own experiences were the stepping stone to getting on this, social impact entrepreneurship.

Anusha: Though 2002 I started working in the sector, I worked mostly with children and young people. And even then I felt gender was too much for me to unpack I felt like a lot of my childhood and my upbringing would inhibit and I felt that I couldn't be professional enough. I think again, these are some of the stereotypes that I carried that doing work in gender would make me very emotional.

Only later I realized it made me more resilient and strong. But it took me about a decade in the social impact sector working with children that I realized I love working with girls Sudha. Just give them a small platform and they'll shatter it, and they'll take charge of their lives.

And that sort of inspired me and that's what I felt that through them, I started realizing how much potential it is to work with girls and how crucial it would be at a very formative age to give them that platform and that safe space. But I think the true calling came when I was doing some field work, I was in an Anganwadi where they were doing a baby shower.

So, they were telling young to be mothers and their mothers in law healthy nutrition for pregnant women and lactating women. When I saw a very young girl, I felt she was not more than 13 and 14, heavily pregnant, completely listless, not answering, it seemed like almost the whole life's burden is in her womb. And I felt very angry that this shouldn't be happening to girls, but I was also angry that nobody else was angry. Like I had department officials, there were other civil society organisation members and police was there and everybody, like even parents and family, they weren't angry at that situation, right?

And it left me very angry to say this shouldn't happen and what can I do to see as many girls not getting trapped in that. So that's really the genesis of ‘Voice for Girls’ because we believe that creating a gender transformative safe space is very crucial in the life of adolescent girls.

Because, today she's a girl, she gets a period, she's almost a woman and then the transition was so quick that the girls aren't, ready for this transition, aren't prepared for what's happening in their bodies, let alone what sociocultural expectations will fall on them. So helping girls navigate that phase in life through Voices’ work was the vision in which we set it up.

And by creating these gender transformative safe spaces for marginalized adolescents, and we do it mostly in government funded schools, residential schools, in colleges, what we're doing is help girls understand what's happening in their bodies, how to navigate this crucial phase and prepare for what life is ahead of them.

And since 2012, we've been doing this work and we worked in several geographies, not just in Telangana, but currently our work is in Telangana, Andhra and Karnataka. Our work has impacted the lives of close to 270000 girls, women and boys.

Sudha: That's so amazing.

And like what you say is something that we've seen in the past, I think there are multiple India's in India, and we tend to ignore the fact that this continues to happen and there needs to be a specific effort trying to change and give a platform to young girls.

So according to you, Anusha, what needs to be done to reap the benefits of this demographic dividend, considering that India has the largest adolescent population in the world? How can we break the cycle of exclusion, deprivation, violence for young girls, also boys, I'd say, and create a more equitable society?

Anusha: India is sitting at a very crucial point in our in its history. It's exciting. And I think we should be nervous at the same time. We are a demographically young country, one in every five people in India is between the ages of 10 to 19, which is adolescent age. And we're one of the fastest growing economies.

In the recently held G20, India also promised that out of six priority areas, Sudha, that women led development would be a crucial area. And my question to India would be, can we be women led in the future before being girl led today? And there is a huge need to be girl led today. India is having 120 million adolescent girls as we speak.

So strengthening that agency will be very critical to unlock the fast growing economic pace that we need to sustain to get to where we want to. However, in recent news, you've heard such horrific crimes that are happening against women and it once again highlights that mainstream education is not reaching millions of girls and even if it is reaching, it is not preparing them for life. We're still a society where there are very regressive socio cultural norms. There's very limited access to information, especially to adolescent girls. And we require urgently to have spaces where girls are able to understand what's happening, but also get skills to be able to unlock that agency and potential for themselves, right?

And I feel that spaces like Voice is really crucial for that because it is preparing girls for life. It's giving them a space to have critical conversations around their health. And when I say health, Physical and sexual reproductive health, mental health, helps them understand how to stay safe from violence because we want girls to be able to recognize violence, prevent violence and report violence where it's happening.

Understand they have rights. India has many great laws, but it's not getting implemented because girls don't know these laws exist. They have laws that can help them stay in school, prevent early marriage, keep them safe in workspaces. So, it's very critical that they realize their rights and how to access them.

And at the same time, a space where they are able to dream, right? Like I think the dream for girls are set by families and communities. And it's sort of is like what they believe girls should dream. And the dream is like two, three years, get married and then we'll see. Have a child and then we'll see, have another child, maybe if you're in laws do. So, all the decision making for her is happening by others. So how do we create a space where she realizes she can be a decision maker because she's not seeing that in the family. She's not having enough role models in the community to showcase that. So also showcasing there are role models from these communities that have been able to challenge these norms, right?

So I feel that India really needs to invest in adolescent girls and unlock that agency because we have a bright future if we do that. If we don't, we will continue to see abuse and violence. We continue to see that woman, though they're getting educated, are dropping off because they have to xxxxxxx for their families. And I think we're at a point where it's not okay.

Sudha: It's so true we have great ambitions on where we want to go as a country. But to have that growth, you need to be able to harness the potential of all of these young girls and at this point in time, we are not even harnessing the potential of women.

And so, unless there is a, dedicated focus and investment, and resources put towards this, nothing is going to change or move.

Anusha: But I want to add that India has been successful in, say, increasing the literacy amongst women, right? And girls. The female literacy is probably much better than it has been decades ago.

And there has been a huge mobilisation from governments and civil society to get here. How do we like learn from those and continue to bridge the gap. Because girls when getting to school, we build that bridge. But girls are getting educated but aren't showing up at workspaces. Something has to be done for those as well.

Like there are crucial bridges that we have to continue to build because just pushing them into education, you're still like, sitting on huge potential that you don't know how to harness. But there are examples of having mobilized this for a good purpose. So how do we also translate it to the other phases of her life?

Sudha: Yes, there exists best practice in the system somewhere. And we need to know about it and use it in other places.

So, Anusha, what would you say are the biggest challenges you face while doing this work? Because I don't know about society, I think middle class is very, blase about it. And sometimes they're very patronizing about it. But there are so many challenges on the ground in the sense that you are trying to get young women into, education, empower them. But how important is it to have that social structure around them to actually educate and get them also up to speed?

Anusha: I think there are a few that I can think of off the top of my mind. One is just keeping up the motivation of the work. Even as we are preparing thousands of girls to fight the battles, stay in school, stay in school, question patriarchy, there are millions that are dropping out and getting trapped in lives of unrealized potential, I would say.

So it's always like you're putting one piece but two things are getting undone and you have to constantly pick yourself up and keep going as a leader, as the team, as an organisation. And sometimes it's quite challenging to find that motivation because the recent crime that happened in Kolkata has upset so many of us at a personal level too. And it makes us question like, we've done decades of work, we've had girls dream and say they want to be doctors, they want to be engineers, and then when you see this. What is the example that is going to set for parents?

They're saying, what is the use of education? If this is what might as well get her married, she's safer at home, but also to recognize the homes aren't safe for many women, right? So how do we have those difficult conversations? Second is I think figuring out ways to bring boys and men into this conversation.

Voice has been working with adolescent boys and young men, and it has been one of the most challenging programs we've done because we want this conversation which is empathetic towards them, because gender is affecting them as well. They're getting boxed into these gender stereotypes of being a provider and protector for the family, even as girls are saying you're the nourisher and the nurturer of the family, right?

Like, how do we recognize they're getting boxed, but at the same time, help them understand that they have the privilege to unbox themselves and become allies for girls and women. That's a very difficult conversation. I think empowerment for girls and women is very exciting. When girls get this information, there's just so much energy in the room Sudha, that you'll just be blown away by how girls want to share this information. But in a boy's classroom though, it's very similar in terms of the format of, you know, activity based and helping them discover this. It is a lot of retrospection and reflection because boys are like, yeah, that's true, my mother works during her period, and I didn't know it was such a difficult time for her.

Or when a boy shared that, I get more money because I'm a boy from my grandmother for Diwali, when I used to feel very proud, but actually my sisters weren't getting because they're girls, it is a simple thing like this, that is a reflection on their everyday lives. But helping understand the criticality of this conversation with the boy and then other organisations also maybe to learn how to do this at scale.

It's not enough to just do it with 10 boys, 100 boys. How can we do this at a scale? Because obviously they are super important to this conversation and we're still figuring out. And the third aspect is that funding landscape is changing so rapidly, domestic funding, as well as FCRA, and if organisations like us, which have worked for, you know, TK plus, there's a lot of evidence, can become ecosystem players, can become resource hub for other organisations wanting to do this work, there isn't funding for such kind of work.

And it's very difficult to get along, to become ecosystem players and, invest in organisational development, right? People