Milaan Foundation- Girl Icons Program

India is home to 243 million adolescents, and 20% of the world’s total adolescent population. Yet the status of girls in India, especially those from vulnerable and disadvantaged communities, is in a dismal state. According to Dasra, it is estimated that for every 100 girls that enroll in schools in rural India, 40 will reach grade four, 18 will reach grade eight, 9 will reach grade ten, and only 1 will make it to grade twelve. Furthermore, in the district of Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, surrounding the Milaan School, a startling 63 percent of girls drop out after class 8.

While for boys, adolescence might mean greater possibilities and a broadening world, for girls it means greater limitations. Adolescent girls, especially from socially and economically disadvantaged communities, spend less time in school than boys, perform a disproportionate share of domestic work, have restricted mobility, and have very few acceptable and safe public spaces for recreation.

Girl Icons gather for a night of fun at the Girl Icons Gala

The Girl Icon Fellowship program recognizes outstanding change-makers who seek to make a difference in their communities. It has been specifically designed for adolescent girls in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh – two of India’s most populated states ranked lowest on the Human Development Index. In 2018, Milaan worked to expand the program to 500 fellows, who will, in turn, with over 10,000 adolescent girls in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

PaperSeed partnered with Milaan to develop curriculums and trainings to enable Girl Icons to make an even greater impact in their communities. First, Milaan developed a 120 hour holistic life-skills based curriculum (focused on areas like girls rights to education, gender, aspirations and dreams, and financial health) for the Girl Icons program, which was piloted with the existing batch of the Girl Icons and their peer groups. In the future, this program will be used to directly work with the new batch of 500 Girl Icon fellows and their peer groups, thus creating an exponential impact. Second, Milaan developed a 60-hour comprehensive life-skills education curriculum, which will be directly delivered by Girl Icons in their bi-monthly peer group sessions. Finally, Milaan trained 28 Sahayogis (women at the grassroots levels who will help support Girl Icons on the ground) over a two-day workshop. Sahayogis are now equipped with coaching skills and can help Girl Icons to form peer groups, conduct peer group meetings, and plan Social Actions.

Girl Icon Rajkumari engaging her peer group and community in a social action against child marriage

Milaan and their dynamic girl icons are poised to create massive change in India. Development of new curriculums and the onboarding of Sahayogi trainers have created an exciting future for the program, and—most importantly—India’s girls.