Week-long campaign to promote gender equality

New Delhi : Boys in the age group of 8 to 14years took a pledge on Monday to make Seemapuri in North East Delhi a model for gender equality and women and girls’ safety. This marks the beginning of a week-long campaign packed with awareness building events by these children within their community.

This unique initiative has been organised in the run up to Women’s Day, which attempts to co-opt boys in the gender equity discourse and change the narrative from ‘boys as perpetrators’ to ‘boys as supportive agents’. The campaign was flagged off by Vinay Yadav, SHO Seemapuri, in the presence of 300 to 400 people. These boys will be spreading awareness through various mediums like song, dance, street plays and wall magazines during this week. The road show will move around on various points in Seemapuri.

It will have an open dialogue with the community on various issues such as female feticide, sexual abuse, rape, denial of higher education and early marriage of girls, with an emphasis to provide equal opportunities to boys and girls to move forward. “We have been planning for weeks. I am so excited to be a part of the campaign. I feel very privileged that I am in a position to make a positive change in my community” one of the boys said. Renu a Laureus representative said “Fantastic positivity with power of Agents of Change and power of Sports under Model City Delhi”. These boys have been part of intensive gender sensitisation and leadership workshops.

They have emerged as Agents of Change (AOC). The AOCs are active within their community to bring about social change in a slow and steady manner. Pockets of Seemapuri have the reputation of being the hub of drug dealers and anti-social elements, making it unsafe for women and girls. This area has been selected to implement a pilot project, which engages with adolescent girls and boys to promote gender equality.

This is part of a multi-city intervention entitled Model City, supported by international agency Laureus Sports for Good. In India, Seemapuri has been selected for the site of the ‘Model City Delhi’ project. CEQUIN is implementing this project on ground in partnership with Laureus. Centre for Equity and Inclusion (CEQUIN) is an NGO that was set up in 2009. It works on gender empowerment. CEQUIN’s model involves a two pronged approach.

Sports is used as a tool for intervention to build girls leadership through the Kickstart Equality programme. AOC workshops are conducted with boys to make them sensitive and create an enabling environment for both girls and boys to grow. This is a part of the Mardo Wali Baat campaign. These two interventions are now a part of the Model City Delhi.