From Sahasi Girls to Sahasi leaders

 After successful culmination of community building workshop, the next step in the Sahasi Girls program involved inspiring the girls to take up leadership roles. With this objective, we organized a workshop with the girls to map their intention, sharing our objectives and building a discourse on accountability and setting boundaries as the first step towards leadership in their community.

In the first activity, we encouraged the girls to share on ‘why do they come for the workshops or sessions organized by Sahas?’ Some of the answers were –

‘This is the first time in the village when someone is organizing programs for girls. Our families, villagers don’t really care about us. It is you who organizes these meetings so that the girls can move ahead and do something in their lives’

‘You gave us strength to voice our thoughts, feelings and challenges’

‘I come to these meetings because I know you will tell us something important’

‘You inspire us and give us courage to keep moving’

‘I learnt openness to learn new things and participate’

‘These programs talk about importance of girl’s education’

‘Girls are no less than boys’

‘You gave us courage to continue our education’

It was beautiful and inspiring to hear that our intention of working with the girls in the village has reached them and they are learning, listening and implementing them in their lives.

In the next activity, through chart paper, the facilitator shared the objective behind running Sahasi Girls program and various activities and sub programs running as part of it. While doing so, both the team members and girls realized that these programs have supported many girls be it education initiatives, sports or creative endeavors.

The third part was tricky and challenging yet crucial because this conversation will lay the foundation of Sahasi Leaders and associated programs in following months. In the span of 4 years, Sahas team has encountered multitudes of challenges, harassed by the family members of girls, drunk villagers, rowdy men trying to stop football games and even authority people in the village. Despite that, team members never stopped supporting the girls, however many times girls under the influence of family members have tried to take advantage of team members, called them unnecessarily, demanded things like bicycle etc because other girl in need has received it. So, to counter all of this, and establish accountability and boundaries on both ends, cofounder at Sahas clearly stated the issues, what kind of things are expected from the girls and what support can be provided by Sahas.

This dialogue was well received by the girls and they affirmed their participation keeping in mind the value of mutual respect and boundaries. The girls were divided into 5 groups each group had 2 appointed leaders. They will be meeting every week and engage in activities to build community, understand and support each other better. In the last part of the session, we did an interest mapping for various activities like learning computer, English, theatre, art and music. The joy of getting opportunity to learn various skills was unmatchable.