Let’s just play and put our gender biases away! That’s exactly what our School Support Program beneficiary students got to do through a series of special awareness sessions conducted by the organisation Just Play.
Our gender biases can be an obstacle in many walks of life, especially sport. Gender sensitization among children is one way to address the issue. It empowers them to examine their attitudes and beliefs about different gender roles and break pre-conceived and subconscious biases. Sports undoubtedly is a powerful platform to promote Gender Equality and empower girls, while providing physical, psychological and social development among children.
Research proves this and we at Vision Rescue have also used sport to incentivise education by engaging our children in government schools around our target slum communities in sports programs such as kabbadi, football and self defence. Through our years of interacting with these students, we saw a significant need for gender sensitization among the students. To achieve this goal, we partnered with the Just Play Program, in which sports are combined with life-skills to sensitise children between ages 6-12 years about gender roles and equality.
Through eight progressive sessions of 35 minutes in four schools of Shivaji Nagar, Govandi, specifically using the game of football to break gender bias, Just Play impacted over 4052 children in our School Support Program!
The themes for the sessions were
- 👉Respecting our differences.
- 👉Together we are stronger.
- 👉Treating one another with respect.
- 👉Working on our differences.
- 👉Boys should respect girls & vice versa.
- 👉Learning to make a difference together.
- 👉We are one.
- 👉Be champions of respect.
Through these programs, we’ve observed
🏆Gender biases breaking – Girls and boys began playing together as the sessions helped with reversing fixed mindsets about the opposite gender.
🏆Respect growing for one another – The coaches present ensured that the students greeted each other respectfully and spoke to one another kindly. Boys were especially encouraged to respect girls.
🏆Safe spaces growing to build team spirit – Girls felt more free to join in in games with boys because they felt increasingly safe and included. Playing as a team made all feel socially welcomed.
🏆Love for sport fostered – Attendance in regular classes increased because students wanted to come to school to play sports. They now spend less time in their risky-heavy home and slum community environments, and instead spend time in a safe school!
Vision Rescue has been working closely with the Municipal Schools near our target slum communities, specifically with the children at risk of dropping out, since 2018 through our School Support Program. (Read more here – https://visionrescue.co.in/why-education/ The program began in 2018 with our SSP coaches organising sports sessions in self defence. Our belief was that sports can be used to engage students by making them eager to come to school daily. Soon enough, we witnessed these children, living or working in high-risk communities, now looking forward to attending school. The schools also observed how sports impacted students’ attendance and attention, and requested Vision Rescue to include their other students as well. Today, Vision Rescue’s School Support Program operates in 14 Municipal Schools around our target slum communities in Mumbai, impacting the lives of nearly 7000 children. The Just Play Program model fit perfectly well into our organisation’s mission to engage and sustain children in education, and has been a great value addition.
Going forward we take this program to more municipal schools we work in, besides Shivaji Nagar BMC School, Govandi. The Schools in Cheetah Camp, Mankhurd, Mumbai are next on our list. Thank you Just Play for investing in our children! Thank you dear donors and volunteers for your constant support that helps us build such partnerships to empower the vulnerable to enjoy their rights and live with dignity.
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Vision Rescue exists to rescue children from all forms of exploitation by engaging and sustaining them in education. We are a registered NGO for child education under the Bombay Public Trust Act 1950.
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