cation and to tackle stubborn problems such
as gender discrimination, it concluded, “will
shape the degree to which this generation
[of girls] is able to maximize its potential
and become drivers of positive change at
the local and global levels.”
Some countries are embracing the
girl-power movement – at least on paper.
Count India among them. Under Prime
Minister Narendra Modi, the country has
launched a visible public awareness cam-
paign under the slogan “Beti Bachao, Beti
Padhao” – “Save the Girl, Educate the Girl.”
Around New Delhi and in cities across
the country, billboards feature girls wearing
school uniforms or playing carefree games
outdoors, with slogans such as “Every girl is
precious” or to educate a girl is to “strength-
en the nation.” The campaign is part of na-
tional efforts to end female infanticide and
child marriage and to stress the importance
of keeping girls in school. Yet slogans are
one thing; changing a culture is another.
“All of this activity and national com-
munication around the girl child is pretty
robust, and that’s certainly positive,” says
Gupta. “But implementation of the pro-
grams behind the slogan remains a chal-
lenge, and then there’s the underlying issue
that is more important than any of the rest
of it: that girls are just valued less, largely
because they carry less economic value.”
Not in Thennamadevi, though. Not for a
handful of idealistic and indomitable teens.Kousalya was like many of the young girls in
the village. She was headed down a path
with tightly prescribed expectations and
boundaries.
Her father, a fruit seller who like many
other fathers in the village was prone to
drinking, didn’t want her to go to school after
age 12. A daughter should be at home, he
said, not going off to a new school that wouldbe “mixed,” where she’d be around boys.
But her father died an alcoholic, and
Kousalya insisted on going to school, en-
listing the support of a women’s nongov-
ernmental organization in nearby Viluppur-
am, the district capital. Now she’s studying
physics, wants to go to college, and plans
to eventually become a college professor.
“We’ve come a long way from the first
days of the club when we went door to doorto convince parents that it was a good idea to
let their daughters come out in the evenings
to meet with other girls,” says Kousalya,
standing before rows of purple-draped ta-
bles in Thennamadevi’s activity center. “Ex-
periencing that progress has shown all the
girls that they can do a lot with their lives.”
Others confirm that the can-do spirit ofthe club has taught them that the future
is boundless. Bharati Murugan grew up
hearing “You are a female. You are not for
studying and working,” she says. But that
made her all the more determined to avoid
her mother’s fate as a child bride. When the
club was formed, she was one of the first to
join and is now the treasurer.
Standing alongside the bicycle she cher-
ishes because it gives her an exhilaratingsense of independence, Bharati says that
working to improve life in the village has
taught her that girls really can accomplish
a lot, especially when they collaborate. Her
involvement with the club has also strength-
ened her determination to one day join In-
dia’s civil service, the Indian Administrative
Service (IAS).
“I made a sign for my house that says
‘Bharati IAS!,’ and every morning I proclaim
those words aloud. My family laughs at me,
but I don’t care,” she says, pulling on one of
her two long braids. “I’m going to make it
come true, just as the girls of Thennamadevi
are making true our dream of building a
model village!”
Indeed, the girls have been bringing
about civic improvements with a speed that
would make any government bureaucrat
envious. They badgered district leaders with
letters and meetings until lighting was pro-
vided for the village’s two unpaved streets.
Tired of confronting village men loitering
and drinking around the community toilet
when they needed to use it, the girls started
VNEXT PAGEVFROM PAGE 26
‘We’re making things better not just for
girls, but for everybody in our village.’
- Kousalya Radakrishnan, president of the local girls club
Students perform a play explaining the consequences of child marriage at a meeting of a girls club in
Lamba Kalan, a remote village in a conservative state in northern India.AHMER KHAN/SPECIAL TO THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR