The Context

113 million adolescent girls are an invisible population in India. Socio-cultural practices and conditioning deny them their autonomy, a chance to discover their potential and live in a world that meets their needs based on their realities.

To create a gender equitable world, we must amplify the voice, agency and leadership of adolescent girls in India.

About Us

The Gender Lab is a non-profit that works towards empowering adolescents and youth in urban and rural communities in India to question existing gender narratives through critical and meaningful engagement within their communities.

This mission is achieved through TGL’s work across three verticals:
  1. Empowering Adolescent Girls: This includes our Avanti Young Women Leadership Program and the alumni community. 
  2. Empowering Women*: The Gender Lab Fellowship and a community of 55 alumni since 2015.
  3. Redefining Masculinities: This includes The Gender Lab Boys Program and its alumni community. Additionally, How We Raise Our Boys, a program for educators and teachers. 

*women here is inclusive of trans and non binary individuals

Avanti Young Women Leadership Program

This is a school based 20-25 hour program for 13-14 years old adolescent girls in Mumbai, Maharashtra and Jind, Haryana. The program constitutes of classroom learning sessions which focus on leadership, gender and self followed by community action projects on various social issues. We conclude by reflecting and celebrating.

The program is delivered by women, 20-25 years old who are selected as TGL Fellows for a 10 month journey.

The program enables adolescent girls to

  • Discover their own potential and self-esteem
  • Build confidence and courage
  • Articulate their dreams and needs
  • Build social awareness
  • Gain experience on how to address a social issue around them
  • Know what is a gender stereotype
  • Be able to identify how gender stereotypes impact them

The Gender Lab Fellowship

With the dream for young women to be independent and live a life based on their own choices, The Gender Lab Fellowship is a space for building their leadership skills, self-awareness, and sisterhood through a multi layered ‘service learning’ model. It is a full-time 10 month fellowship in Mumbai (for women from all over India) and in Jind (for women only from Jind).

The fellowship consists of two parts:

  • School Track: Each fellow facilitates sessions and mentors 250-300 adolescent girls across 10-12 schools. As part of this track, the fellows undergo various training sessions like creative facilitation methods and holding space, managing school stakeholders, policy training, etc.
  • Self Track: This is a separate learning journey designed specifically for the fellows’ growth. The objective is to build self awareness, expose our fellows to numerous world views, different feminist interventions, build leadership skills, and to equip them with the skills needed to run a grassroot-intervention for adolescent girls. The fellowship hosts various learning sessions, workshops, and experiences to enable this.

The Gender Lab Boys Program

This program engages school going adolescent boys to explore different aspects of masculinities with them and challenge gender stereotypes at the grass root level. Encouraging the boys to share, express, and care, while creating a trusted and safe space for the same, is a core principle of the engagement.

How We Raise Our Boys

This is a multilingual program that is organized for educators and teachers working with children. The program has so far been organized in 10 languages including English with the intent to create gender inclusive classrooms. You can read more about this program on the HWROB website.

Impact

Engagement with adolescent girls across Mumbai, Goa , Delhi & Jind
0 +
Operational in Mumbai & 45 villages of Jind
0
Worked with schools, low & middle income private, govt. schools
0 +
Alumni fellows over 7 cohorts
0 +
Educators impacted through redefining masculinities vertical
0

Our Team

Quotes

Associations

Write to us here; if you have any queries

© 2023 All Rights Reserved.