Our Story
The Study Hall Educational Foundation (SHEF) in 2013 launched an "India's Daughters: Unwanted, Unsafe, Unequal" and invited schools, students, alumni, teachers and parents to join as we raised our voice and consciousness against gender violence and gender inequality in India in particular and in the world in general. Anchored in Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBV) across the state of Uttar Pradesh, IDC has exponentially grown in outreach through sustained advocacy in the last 8 years. As of 2019, 2,320 schools had participated in the campaign engaging approximately 2,32,000 students and 8,645 government officials. 1592 community meetings and panel discussions with the members of leading political parties were held. A total of 1729 awareness marches were carried out across the state of Uttar Pradesh, during which 3840 people signed a pledge vowing to stop child marriages. The success of the previous years’ IDCs have seen District Collectors, Basic Education Officers, District Probation Officers of all the districts, Women and Child Welfare Officers and district level functionaries take part in the IDC.
For the last eight years the IDC has tried to create increased awareness and link schools with the community through a series of engaging programs and tasks conducted throughout the year. Each year’s IDC runs various competitions, awareness marches, panel discussions and community meetings themed around a specific issue related to girls rights to help raise the collective consciousness against prevalent social evils.
Starting in 2013, students from the KGBVs were invited to participate in the Web Campaign “India’s Daughters”. This was the first time that Girls from the KGBVs got their opinions published on the World Wide Web and read by thousands of visitors worldwide. Responses came in the form of Personal Stories, Articles, Poems and Essays. Since then the IDC web campaign is launched every year increasing in its outreach and garnering thousands of entries from communities in remote areas. These entries are not only shared on the web-campaign but also put up on campus notice boards. As of 2019, IDC has received 9,411 web entries.
This year’s campaign calls on boys to join the fight and will give special attention to what boys can do to change the patriarchal norms and culture that promote discrimination and violence towards women.