Announcement of Ashoka Changemakers Competition Winner - Click for download

Congratulatory Messages received from key people on Harish Sadani winning Ashoka’s Changemakers Prize,
US at online global competition In May 2010 - Click for download

Yuva Maitri : Landmark Initiative Engaging Young Men, since 2006

The initiative began in August 2006, when 33 male students ( of 18 -20 years’ age-group) from 6 rural and semi-rural colleges in Pune district, having leadership skills and creative potential, were selected and intensely trained as ‘Communicators’ for a year.  A wide range of youth-friendly and innovative, cost-effective communications media like interactive group-discussions, games, awareness-songs, posters, film-screenings, street-theatre, exposure-visits, youth-meets, debates and attractive wall-newspapers (monthly, every issue focusing on one gender theme) were used as part of the intensive one-year training. 

In the second year of the initiative, 17 trained student communicators began communicating with their peers on gender, healthy relationships, masculinity and related matters. Weekly awareness sessions (one to one and a half hours each) were conducted by them in groups in their respective colleges, from mid-August to December 2007. Through experiential learning, personal dialogue and revisiting formation of gender norms, they provided platforms to communicate with peers using all the youth-friendly media (used in the first year) extensively. They conducted several outreach programs for general student population (including girl students) and the neighboring community. These included film-screenings followed by an interaction, street-plays, Inter-Collegiate and Inter-District debates and focused group-discussions. Wall newspapers were prepared and displayed prominently by the communicators on varied themes like Male-Female Friendship, Ban on Sex Education in schools, Farmers’ Suicides, Sex-selective Abortions, Women and Anaemia. There were stimulated discussions, comments and contributions by many peers on wall-newspapers. From time to time, the trained communicators also took specific stands on incidents of gender-based violence against women in their area through rallies and public protest demonstrations (here too,  female classmates joined them voluntarily) appealing several young men to join their campaign. Throughout the initiative, students were encouraged to raise questions, doubts and seek clarifications on a wide range of gender matters covered. A booklet, answering key 40 questions was published and later copies of the same distributed to several students across Pune district.

Participation of the college faculty and Principals of respective 6 colleges along-with  Pune University officials was elicited, at various stages of implementation of the initiative, to encourage trainee communicators to continue their work with peers. A significant aspect of the initiative was enabling the student communicators question traditional male stereotypes in society, chalk out a ‘Personal Change Plan,’ which will help them to work on their own attitudes towards women and evolve appropriate alternatives – positive models of masculinity. Each of the 17 communicators, who continued at the initiative, attempted to work for a year on their personal change plans, most of them accomplished their desired change in outlook, thanks to periodic encouragement by Harish Sadani and his team at MAVA. During these first 2 years of initiative, the self-motivated team of communicators built considerable rapport with several developmental organizations (including women’s groups) in Pune and gradually developed a strong network of resource persons. This helped them immensely to explore ways of collaborating with support groups to reach out to more men in the community. With the help of this team, the initiative has been gradually spreading to other 4 districts of Maharashtra : Mumbai (since August 2008), Satara and Kolhapur (since June and July 2009 respectively) and now to Jalgaon (December 2009).

Impact of the initiative
The core team of trained and experienced male communicators in Pune have been exploring ways andmeansto reach out toinspire, facilitate and mentor many youths across the state. They are being invited by women’s groups, health providers and youth bodies in Pune and other parts of Maharashtra to periodically conduct gender-awareness sessions for young men and women and also to share methodologies and strategies to reach out to men. They have been pro-actively planning and participating in public meetings, seminars, protest- demonstrations, putting up street-plays on HIV /AIDS and running campaigns in other districts (Aurangabad and Nashik) on domestic violence and other gender issues in their region. With the strong rapport built with voluntary organizations and women's groups in and around Pune, the team of communicators have been receiving encouragement from several quarters. They are now offered opportunities by Stree Mukti Sanghatana, awomen’s group in Pune to conduct periodic gender-sensitization workshops for boys in schools. In September 2008, Breakthrough TV, a Delhi-based human rights organization enlisted participation of 10 communicators for a 40-day massive awareness campaign in Aurangabad and Nashik districts, sensitizing local youth population on issues of domestic violence and prevention of HIV transmission. Dr.K.N.Bavale, former Principal of Grammonati Mandal’s College, Narayangaon (covered by the initiative) and currently Director, State Resource Centre, Pune got in touch with MAVA’s trained communicators and enabled them put up a series of street-play performances on HIV/ AIDS in various colleges across Pune district and in villages adopted by them. 3 communicators started working part-time since December 2008, as Outreach Workers at a Voluntary Organization called Saudamini, which works with migrant men on issues of HIV/ AIDS and sexuality.

MAVA’s Communicator Ganesh Phule was selected among 80 young boys and girls from all-over Maharashtra  for ‘Nirmaan’ Project of SEARCH, Gadchiroli district run by Dr. Abhay and Rani Bang. Nirmaan is a 2-year initiative which would provide the select youths first-hand exposure and interface with developmental professionals on a wide range of social issues and help enable create a team of youth change-makers. Another communicator Amol Kale, who completed his graduation, decided to pursue professional social work training and reach out to more youths on gender in future. He was successful in securing admission to the Master’s Degree Course in Social Work at Bharati Vidyapeeth, Pune. 

Many health activists, developmental professionals, women’s groups, colleges and voluntary organizations in Mumbai (Vacha, Women's Development Cell of  Mumbai University, College of Social Work, Mumbai Districts AIDS Control Society - MDACS), Pune (Nari Samata Manch), Nagpur (Yuva, Anubhav Shiksha, Bharatiya Stree Shakti), Y.B.Chavan College, Satara have been inviting MAVA and its team of communicators to conduct trainings, share training modules, methodologies (usage of wall newspapers, set of posters created on redefining masculinity etc.) and strategies to reach out to more adolescent boys and young men. Since August 2008, MAVA up-scaled the initiative in Mumbai for male youths in 5 colleges (including a night-college having working students). Through this, select students from the 5 colleges are being sensitized and trained to engage peers and other young men on a wide range of gender and sexuality matters. A telephonic helpline for youths started in Mumbai, through the up-scaling, in September 2009, is reaching out to many young men and women.

The initiative got further boost in June 2009 when MAVA collaborated with a grassroots community developmental organization in Satara and is currently developing a pool of male communicators, hailing from 20 villages. MAVA has gradually been approached by organizations  in 2 other districts of the state -  Kolhapur and Jalgaon, to start similar processes for sensitizing, capacity-building on gender and masculinities, enabling many young men to become potential change-agents and ambassadors of the issue. MAVA entered into collaboration with  D.K.Shinde School of Social Work in Kolhapur in July 2009. Since then, 3 student social workers and a voluntary trained social worker from the said college are working actively to reach out to students in their college and select villages of Panhala taluka in Kolhapur -- having the lowest sex ratio in Maharashtra as reported by latest Census figures.

In December 2009, MAVA was invited by North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon to conduct a Gender-Sensitization Workshop for select Faculty from 3 districts. The University has, thereafter, invited MAVA to train a batch of select lecturers from the 3 districts and plan a long-term program to reach out to many college students in and around Jalgaon. on issues of women’s empowerment.

MAVA’s initiative, which has been spread beyond Pune and Mumbai, has  on date reached out to over 20,000 young men and 5000 young women (though the focus is on men)by way of Interactive Awareness Sessions and Outreach Programs. As one of the key outcomes of the initiative, there has been a sizeable number of adolescent boys and young men, comfortably talking about gender and masculinity issues and in an healthy manner (not disrespecting women). Among the specific gains from the initiative expressed by the communicators of Pune and observed by an external professional were: They developed ease in communicating with girls in their colleges. The traditional outlook, of some trainers, towards girls changed and they stopped teasing / harassing girls in college campuses.Many started sharing work at home like picking up dishes after meals, washing own clothes, sweeping floor etc. Many students advocated for greater freedom of mobility and expression for their mothers and sisters.  One of them argued for his sister to have a say in choosing a match for her marriage.

Through this first of it’s kind initiative in India, MAVA’s communicators have been providing safe, non-threatening platforms (physical and psychological) to many young men to open up, communicate, share their fears, thoughts, dilemmas and concerns, self-introspect on a wide range of Sexual Health, Man - Woman Relationships and other gender matters. And in the process of collectively addressing gender matters, they are evolving and promoting alternative, positive models of masculinity that are gender-equitable.