ONE CHILD, ONE TEACHER, ONE BOOK, AND ONE PEN CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.”– Malala Yousafzai (Nobel Laureate, 2014 Peace Prize)
Foot Forward strongly believes in the philosophy of changing the world by taking baby steps with the children we interact with, we religiously follow the theory of “butterfly effect”. Our simple efforts may bring about a big change in the complex system. Foot Forward is largely working with children from middle school (Grade 5-8), but December 2016 was a bit special as we got to interact and work with the girls of grade 5-8, from the largest municipal school only for girls in Faridabad area, for their holistic education. The interaction was done in collaboration with the ‘Sledgehammer Foundation’. The storm of ‘women empowerment’ has already hit our nation, but we, as a part of the movement need to do our bit towards it. We have dreamt of a country with no gender bias, where each child gets to learn, gets the opportunity to be educated, gets to dream…
The girls were highly excited as soon as our facilitator, Ms. Disha Shrivastava, made her entry in the classrooms. The classrooms were overflowing with excitement just because Disha is from Mumbai (city of Bollywood), the girls were interested in knowing about the film stars she has seen. While interacting with the girls, Disha came to know that they also wanted to talk in English. Inquisitiveness is what a teacher craves for, same happened with our facilitator. She started with teaching them basic communication skills like greetings and simple conversations.
Acquainted by the well known fact of gender biasness faced by the girls of Haryana region, our facilitator wanted to understand whether the girls would like embracing education as their resort or not. When she asked them if they wanted to be tethered like cattle or dream of being a smart and educated lady, the girls obviously and unanimously chose the latter option. When the need of education was discussed deeply with them, they showed their keen interest in opting for higher studies as well.
Personal hygiene and menstruation are still shh-shh-ed topics among girls, this leads to only partial awareness, hence, leading to diseases and unhygienic practices. Disha openly discussed about basic hygiene especially during menstruation. Our girls need to understand that their hygiene is their own responsibility and there is nothing to be ashamed of when in periods as it is as natural and biological as breathing.
