"Why are these changes happening to me?"

 “The problem with growing up is everything feels weird, I don’t know why. Also friends start teasing about facial hairs, the moment we get beard they start pointing it out.”

We began our gender, sexuality and reproductive health program with second group of adolescent students of Government school with first workshop on ‘My body is changing’. The session began with the brief introduction on the intention of the program, importance of these conversations and what will happen in next 1-2 hours.

The workshop started with a riot of enthusiasm, flurry of curiosities and uninhibited energy which left us amazed as these students were participating in a workshop on zoom for the first time and they seemed to be so at ease! On asking the question as to what made them realize that they are boy or girl? – they had some interesting answers.

“While I was playing with my friends in village, my grandmother pointed at me and told my grandfather that I am a boy”

“I used to love wearing colorful bangles. One time, my mother pulled me aside and told me never to wear bangles because I am not a girl but a boy”

“I was 4 or 5, when my father told me that I am a boy”

In the next part of the workshop, the participants were invited to draw their body and engage in the questions around changes that occur as part of adolescence. It was a stunning image to have all the body maps on screen – so detailed and meticulously drawn.

“The good things about growing up is that our height increases, mental health develops. The bad thing being losing temper easily and frequently. I think these changes happen because of hormones”

 “We are becoming healthy, our mind and its capacity is increasing as we are growing”

By gathering their answers, we engaged on what puberty is, what it means to be an adolescents, what all changes take place during puberty, meaning of ‘sexual being’ and why do we need to talk about these changes. I loved interacting with these enthusiastic, exuberant and curious students. When we see the screen in front of us, we just don’t see the students but where they are sitting – one of them was sitting under the tree, one of them was in park, another one had brick wall behind him, one was sitting in a hut with a shed and so on – these kids may not have the basic amenities, the so called peace and quiet to sit in zoom meetings but they had desire to learn something new, something that is important to them and this is what we work for.

“When do we have next session? I have some important question to ask!”