Self Defence for 1000 young girls in Nagpur, India

From Prachi, Personal safety trainer at BH Society Amravati:

Our organisation runs a project on violence free schools in Amravati and Yavatmal. We do personal safety education for both girls and boys. They learn about safe touch and unsafe touch and what they can do to increase their safety and wellbeing. Like this we raise their awareness for abuse and harassment. Boys and girls realise how much easier their life is without harassment and discrimination. And also, what they themselves can do to change the atmosphere in class.

For the girls we organise the self-defence training to complement the course. It took place in the 1st week of February. Adolescent girls of 4 schools were invited. 28 girls attended the two days training. They liked the training very much. Some were saying that they used to be scared to go somewhere on their own. They thought they always need the protection of their fathers or brothers to go somewhere. They have been told that it’s dangerous to roam around as a girl. It seems this has badly affected their confidence. But after the training they now feel confident that they can defend themselves, how to tackle dangerous situations. The trainer Manisha told them encouraging stories of other girls who escaped a difficult situation who saved their lives. We hear so many horrible stories of girls who get abused and raped. But we never hear positive stories where girls are strong and can protect themselves. Hearing examples of other girls brings so much positive energy. Many girls live with the misconception that they are weak and cannot lift heavy weights; let alone defend themselves. But that’s not true. They can learn useful techniques to protect themselves.

One participant N* shared: “We girls have always been told that heavy work is for the boys. Like to carry chairs to the stage for example. Now I said to my teacher, mam, I can do that myself. So, I lifted the chairs and put them on the stage myself. I’m strong I realised! I’m not dependant on boys to do such things for me. This has also raised my confidence a lot.”

It’s great that we can support girls to discover their strengths and confidence and to learn how to defend themselves.