Kishori Mela – A report

I started my journey on 4^th March for the recently held ‘Kishori Mela – A space for Adolescent Girls’ in Karnataka. The mela was organized by Azim Premji Foundation in partnership with Breakthrough and Department of Public Instruction, Government of Karnataka. Breakthrough’s major contribution came in the form of providing conceptual clarity and creating highly effective content for the entire event.

It took me exactly 24 hours to merely reach the venue, Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya, Narayanapur, Shorapur, Yadgir Dist. From Delhi to Hyderabad in a flight, then a cab to Gulbarga and then after a night’s halt I started in another SUV for Shorapur.  Travelling in the heat and dust through the rough terrains, narrow village roads of Yadgir district I wondered, “In this god forsaken place in the middle of nowhere who will come to attend a mela?”

Little did I know I was going to be greeted with around 1600 little girls from various high schools of Shorapur along with around 150 more teachers and women from the community.

I was amazed, to say the least, to see 12-13 year olds managing a stall where they are giving presentation on nutrition and hygiene, to see in another stall a 14 year old handling queries on the ways to stop the spread of HIV.

The day long event held had a total of 26 stalls under 5 themes, namely, Gender, Physical changes, Health and Hygine, Rights and Laws, HIV and Fun and games. In addition there was one doctor to give medical counselling to girls and another to give general Conseling to adolescent girls on any matter on which they had any query. For those with artistic expression, on the school ground from one tree to another there was tied, a huge canvas on which the girls painted their dreams.

It was phenomenal to see children being engaged into conversation around much stigmatized and tabooed subjects like bodily changes, Menstruation, Child birth.

What was even more interesting was the medium through which these subjects were dealt. Pictorial depiction through handmade charts, posters, games, films, songs and handicrafts were some of the ways to spread awareness. All these content were created by Breakthrough Karnataka team.

A brief background to the event:

CFSI team of Azim Premji Foundation in its midterm review came to a conclusion that it has to do something concrete for the adolescent girls because the schools are insensitive and totally unfriendly to these girls. It is at this juncture that the team thought of working with the Kasturba Gandhi Vidyalaya.

Breakthrough then joined hands to provide conceptual clarity and production of materials for all stalls and to hand hold and supplement the schools, organize stalls on film shows, songs, painting space for children and quiz and to develop and provide a carry home resource package for all participants.

Kasturba Gandhi Vidyalaya is a space for school dropout girls to finish their secondary education with help of a residential school. These children are a neglected lot and are at the verge of being married off at tender age, therefore they need awareness about changes that takes place during adolscence. There is a need to build their awareness on a violence free life. They need life skills to make their life better.

The Kishori Mela was geared towards building such awareness among the adolescent girls of this Vidyalaya and nearby High schools.

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