(Voices of young girls from marginalized contexts)
Issues of SRHR and the associated struggles with it, particularly for young girls, young people are known to many of us. Expressions of young girls highlighting the intersectional-realities of marginalized contexts with gender social relations and their aspiring voices further strengthens the discourses on SRHR-through hope, optimism, and resistance.
This International Women’s Day 2022, we at Sama reiterate our commitments to advancing the marginalized voices of young girls. We remain committed to amplifying processes that reaffirms and recognizes their agencies and rights. We stand in solidarity with the complex struggles that the young girls are asserting with varied power structures dictating their life choices, and controlling bodily autonomy and decisions.
Sama is glad to bring out this video based on our engagements with young girls around issues of SRHR. A song developed through collating expressions of young girls, was developed in this format through support from artists like Subhadra (song voice) and Srinivas (sketch illustration).
While the ongoing engagements and training workshops with young girls in Jharkhand, Bihar, UP formed the background of this brief initiative-the Covi19 pandemic contexts unraveled in 2020 necessitated revisiting our conversations with young girls who were further pushed to the margins amidst the exacerbated inequities and struggles within the pandemic context. Through virtual workshops over Zoom with young girls in Bihar during September-December 2020, the discussions were facilitated using Art, creative methods. We are thankful to local activists in Bihar who shared our commitment for this small initiative and came on board-friends from Akansha Seva Sadan, Muzaffarpur. We thank Sharenet International (SNI) for their support in carrying out this initiative.
An Issue Brief and the posters developed by Sama (above) as part of this initiative are also available.