As the world gears up to renew its commitment to gender equity by celebrating International Women’s Day, WGLG continues its efforts to change the stories we are told about women.
India
Mobile Devices Bridge the Gender Gap
A village in Gujarat, India has banned girls below the age of 18 from using mobile phones. According to the village head, mobile phones are a “nuisance to society” that distract girls from their studies and other chores. Women and Girls Lead Global wants to change that.
2015: A Year in Review
With the new year upon us, Women and Girls Lead Global is excited to continue our work around the world and inspire social change through the art of storytelling. See what we’ve been up to in 2015 and where we are headed in 2016.
Challenge Accepted: Closing Of The Gender Gap
On September 9th, Women and Girls Lead Global and our partners ITVS, Ford Foundation, USAID and CARE hosted a Global Gender Gap Challenge at the gorgeous GitHub headquarters. The goal of the event was to create new design and ideas that will transform the lives of women and girls.
The Hero Project Creates New Image for Men in Community
When a 10 year-old girl in Haryana, India can see that her community is in need of more male heroes to protect the safety, livelihood and rights of women and girls, something must be done.
In October, “The Hero Project” – a campaign that aims to prevent gender-based violence in India by challenging harmful gender stereotypes – launched the #ChangetheStory Contest. Hundreds of rural communities in Pune and Beed and slum communities in Bombay and Delhi watched a series of three documentaries about various forms of violence against women, shared their thoughts about them in lively conversations, and were then challenged to develop their own solutions to gender-based violence. In January, four of the 190 participating communities were awarded $1000 in seed money to implement their projects. Among the winning ideas: a strategy for tackling the drug abuse that is provoking violence in boys and men, and a plan to develop a playground reserved for girls.
WGLG Film Inspires Indian Father to Send Daughters Back to School
Bhagwat Thorat pulled each of his three daughters out of school when they reached puberty, fearful that if he waited too long to find them husbands they would have fewer prospects, that they would become victims to sexual violence, or if nothing else, that his investment in their education would end up benefitting the husband’s family and not his own.