Transforming harmful social norms

Sohini Bhattacharya is CEO & President at Breakthrough, working in U.S.A and India to change discriminatory intersectional gender norms through a blended multimedia and community mobilisation approach.

As a theatre artist, Sohini was working to create innovative communication on rights with rural women, when she decided that she would be happiest working in the social sector. In the last 30 years Sohini has set up projects with women using non-traditional livelihoods; worked with indigenous craftswomen on markets and production; co-founded Sanhita-Gender Rights Centre, to produce creative resource materials on gender; and worked with Ashoka Innovators for the Public on institution building in South Asia and bring more women social entrepreneurs to the fellowship.

In 2010 Sohini joined Breakthrough. In 2017, when the  founder and president decided to step down, Sohini, through a competitive process, became the CEO & President.

Sohini serves on the advisory board of 3 non-profit organisations. 

Norms in India have perpetuated gender-based violence, severely impacting the situation of women and girls. India ranks 112 in the global gender gap index; just 918 girls are allowed to be born for every 1000 boys; 9 out of 10 women in India have faced some form of sexual harassment in their lives; every fourth girl is a child bride. 

Breakthrough seeks to make violence against women and girls unacceptable by transforming the cultural norms that perpetuate these practices. By using the socio-ecological model to change collective patterns of behaviour, recognising the important role of reference networks. This prompts more egalitarian behaviours and decision-making and therefore, have the potential to remove a stubborn barrier to the full realization of gender equality and improved outcomes for girls and women. 

It is well-established that gender equality leads to better human development outcomes, not just for women and girls, but for everyone.

Gender inequality is a global problem that holds back the growth of individuals, the development of countries and the evolution of societies, to the disadvantage of everyone. According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2020, at the present rate of change, it will take nearly a century to achieve parity.  

The Thomson Reuters 2018 Survey cited India as the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman; violence against women/girls is normalised through cultural practices that devalue them and justify violence. This is further exacerbated in times of crisis, evident from the impact of COVID-19 by the increase in calls on domestic violence helplines or in incidents of early marriage as the economic situation of families deteriorate. 

India is home to about 120 million adolescent girls,an astounding number of whom struggle to complete secondary school because of restrictions on mobility and rampant sexual harassment, often pushing them into early marriage. Girls’ agency lies seriously compromised as they don’t have a role in making their life choices. 

Several factors contribute to the poor state of girls, but discriminatory social norms are the most challenging. These norms define how girls are treated at home, in educational institutions and at work. 

Taaron ki Toli (TKT - Gang of Stars), a school-based gender equity programme for adolescents in grades 6-8, rigorously evaluated in a randomised control trial by JPal, is seen to shape more progressive gender attitudes and behaviours for both boys and girls  in 14% of cases.The programme comprises of 40 in-classroom and assembly sessions of 45 minutes each embedded into the school timetable over two years. 

The intervention aims to change gender norms in the long term by building agency to question existing gender stereotypes and practices resulting in greater intergenerational and intergender dialogue, as well as reduced gender based discrimination in school and at home. It trains teachers/engages with parents to ensure greater gender sensitivity and value for girls.  

Breakthrough implemented TKT in select districts in 4 states of India. Now, we would like to scale up through the government school system through adoption of the curriculum into all state middle schools, starting with Punjab and Odisha. Breakthrough trainers will train government master trainers/teachers in delivery of the curriculum that will be incorporated into different subject syllabi. In Odisha, Breakthrough will also demonstrate effectiveness of the intervention through a 2 year policy pilot in 100 schools using Breakthrough facilitators. 

The programme serves adolescents 11-14 years in the government school system to bring a generational shift in social norms that impact how women and girls experience their lives in India.

As per the results of the evaluation conducted by J-PAL, we expect gendered attitudes and behaviours to shift among adolescent boys and girls exposed to the programme. This will be measured by the gender attitude index with both and focus on attitudes towards employment, gender roles, and education. 

In Punjab, with Breakthrough providing robust teacher training and frequent monitoring support to teachers, we expect a similar effect. In Odisha, with Breakthrough-trained facilitators delivering the program, we expect that there will be a similar shift in attitudes and behaviours, however the shift will depend on the baseline rates as the local contexts differ quite significantly. 

For several state Governments, strategy for reducing gender inequality focuses only on increasing schooling opportunities for girls. However, that might not be enough to unlock  girls’ opportunities if their impacts are diminished by entrenched attitudes and pervasive norms. Programmes that effectively achieve attitude change, therefore, have the potential to remove  stubborn barriers to the full realization of gender equality and improved outcomes for girls and women.

The solutions cuts across all the dimensions. Despite rapid economic development in India, gender inequality has persisted and has affected the most marginalised.  Evidence indicates that even long-held cultural norms perpetuating gender inequality can be changed, and addressing gender norms at adolescence - a critical time in the development of morality and formation of identity - may have a generational impact, benefitting the wider community. Breakthrough has a solution that has been evaluated by one of the gold standards in evaluation - it can have meaningful implication globally where gender inequality persists. It needs sustained time and resources.

How do you make sure that you create a world where girl are valued and loved for who they are, a world where  they do not face discrimination, stigma, and violence - one in which they thrive?

You do so by shifting the current equilibrium that makes discrimination and violence against women and girls the most pervasive and tolerated human rights abuses. And create a new one by transforming norms, attitudes and beliefs related to gender. 

This was the dream with which Breakthrough started. In 2012, we made a bold foray into working directly with adolescents - we wanted to shift outcomes for one of the most vulnerable populations in the world - the adolescent girl from a poor, marginalised background. We worked with 18,000 children to shift their gender attitudes and behaviours, in one of the most gender regressive states in India - Haryana, where the sex ratio is 830 girls for every 1000 boys.

We won the Skoll award in 2016 and scaled up this program to reach 400,000 adolescents. And we realised that the most cost-effective and impactful scale-up will be to allocate public investment towards delivering a gender attitudes change curriculum through the government school system.

Being a woman in India from a middle class family has its challenges as unequal social norms follow you across class, but my own privileges became clearer to me when I started going to a village to pursue a college project. There I met groups of women and girls, disadvantaged, poor, marginalised by caste and religion  - who didnt have the voice I had - but, yet, were innovative, aspiring, brave, resilient and funny. I think it was then my resolve to work with girls and women took root.

Women and girls in India are born into a socio-cultural context steeped in discrimination and inequity. The statistics are horrifying - 33% of ever-married women in India have experienced physical, sexual, or emotional spousal violence, and more than 90% of women have experienced some form of sexual harassment in their lives. Adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable; they find themselves undervalued, neglected and unloved in their own homes and communities, pushed to domestic roles. Boys on the other hand are expected to step out into the world, since masculinity demands and grants them the right. The injustice is so glaring I wonder how can anyone walk through life ignoring it.

I have 30 years of experience of working on women's and girls issues.Over the last 10 years of working on prevention work with Breakthrough I have developed a deep understanding of the inter-linkages between the various manifestations of violence. This has helped me design programmatic interventions that address all the issues from a gender, sexuality and rights framework. I have also put together a team at Breakthrough that has the various skills needed to deliver program. 

Breakthrough already has evidence of TKT’s effectiveness in 3 states other than Haryana, where the original pilot was conducted. In Bihar, where 43% girls are married before the legal age of 18, we have seen significant shifts in gender norms around early marriage as an outcome of Breakthrough’s intervention. Girls who were part of the TKT curriculum were 89% more likely to be enrolled in school, compared to control, as per an evaluation by CMS.  
Breakthrough has rich experience in training and curriculum development and we have, over the years, developed the capacity to transfer knowledge and cascade skills to a wide range of stakeholders, including the government.  We have in the past, worked effectively to build capacities and content for state governments. 

J-PAL South Asia is our lead partner in the scale-up efforts.

We are therefore confident that we will be able to effectively build the capacities of State education departments, master trainers and school teachers and that the programme will be sustained even after Breakthrough’s direct involvement is over.

Since I took on this role, I have gone through 3 crises. The first one was within 15 days of being in this role, when the Country Director for the India program left with 15 days notice after being in that position for 13 years. So along with being the CEO I had to step into her shoes as well and work with a senior leadership team that has worked with her for long. Building the capacity of the team to be leaders on their own rights, reducing micro-managing was one of the ways I handled that.

In the next 9 months, our Delhi office with 60 people was shut down by a municipal ruling with just 1 days notice. Finding accommodation for 60 people with limited resources, I worked out a blended work from home and scattered office attendance roster, kept up the morale of the teams while project managing a new office space.

The lockdown with Covid 19 has been the latest crisis. We have worked to finish all pending internal trainings on digital, look after the mental health & well being of all staff and had to manage the finances since we have had two funders rescind.

Given the opportunities and challenges that I have navigated in my three years as the leader of this unusual organisation, this is quite a story. As the President & CEO of Breakthrough, my first and foremost job was to stabilize a program with 140 staff members working across five states reaching thousands, addressing challenges in implementation, and creating a scale up plan. In the last few years, we have set in process a diversification of the funds base,and results orientation. I am happy to report that the senior leadership team of 9 people is now forging ahead in advancing our mission.

I have been able to deliver these powerful results even as the president and ceo role for Breakthrough underwent a dramatic change when I assumed the role.  Instead of stepping in as a president with two country directors, I actually had to perform three roles instead of one with both country directors leaving within months of one another and within the first 2 months of my tenure.  What emerged was a leadership role in a founder transition with no roadmap, a great deal of experimentation and a great number of challenges in two geographies and cultures.  

The norm change approach is now slowly unfolding and is a newer area to explore. Currently there are few rigorously evaluated school-based or otherwise adolescent-focused curricula that address gender attitudes systematically. Given the rigorous impact evaluation, TKT is better poised for a scale-up. 

It also creates a disruption within the government school system. For several state Governments, strategy for reducing gender inequality focuses on increasing schooling opportunities for girls, but ignores changing entrenched norms for boys and girls. The Government of Bihar has a bicycle scheme for secondary school girls in Bihar, and a number of state governments have conditional cash transfer schemes that aim to encourage enrolment and higher schooling among girls. However,these might not be enough to unlock  girls’ opportunities if their impacts are diminished by entrenched attitudes and pervasive cultural norms. If households believe that investing in girls is less valuable or appropriate than investing in boys, they will remain reluctant to give daughters equal access to a university education even if there are targeted assistance programs for girls. Similarly, if social norms act as barriers, investment in girls’ education might be insufficient to increase women’s career opportunities or greater autonomy over her life. 

Breakthrough's work can provide comprehensive evidence on mainstreaming innovative behavioural insights within the government school system with the potential to address an important development problem effectively.  If more states incorporate the TKT curriculum into their school system, this can have a seminal impact on how women and girls experience their lives in India. 

In line with the results of the evaluation conducted by J-PAL SA researchers in Haryana, we expect gendered attitudes and behaviours to shift among adolescent boys and girls exposed to the programme. In the Punjab model, with Breakthrough providing robust teacher training and frequent monitoring support to teachers, we expect a similar effect, since the state is also akin to Haryana in its cultural, social and developmental features. In Odisha, with Breakthrough-trained facilitators delivering the program, we expect that there will be a similar shift in attitudes and behaviours as in Haryana, however the shift will depend on the baseline rates as the local contexts differ quite significantly. 

Our primary pathway to scale is through partnerships with multiple state governments - tweaking TKT to customise it to regional contexts and ensuring its adoption into government school curricula. We eventually aim to have the programme funded almost entirely by state governments. Breakthrough would need some supplementary funding for monitoring, evaluation and ongoing improvement of the curriculum in response to environmental changes; this is similar to the model we are exploring with the Punjab government.

A success story from one state will act as a significant impetus for other states to follow suit. It would therefore be critical to have compelling evidence from Punjab and Odisha to create a strong case for the adoption of TKT across different states. The issue of gender based violence has gained significant public attention since the horrific assault and murder of a 23 year old woman in Delhi, in 2012, that led to nationwide protests demanding more action from governments to end the violence. If, along with a successful state scale up, we are able to demonstrate conclusively that the curriculum brings long term changes in the gender behaviours of boys in particular, we should be able to garner the necessary support from other state governments. 

J-PAL South Asia will be undertaking a pre-post survey and a process evaluation and will co-design the pilot with the state officials to build in local ownership from the outset. 

We are currently reaching 500,000 adolescents through our work.

In Punjab since we are looking at a statewide scale up of the programme within one year of launching, we will reach out to the entire population of adolescents in middle school, which is 1,473,856 adolescents across 4450 upper primary schools. This will take our total number from 500,000 to 1.4 million adolescents.

In Odisha, we will reach approximately 7000 children directly across 100 schools in phase 1 which will conclude by year 2. As we move to a statewide scale up we would potentially reach over 2 million children in upper primary schools across the state.

These scale ups will enable us to reach over 3 million adolescents in the next 5 years enrolled in middle school in the states of Punjab and Odisha to shape their gender views and attitudes and to eventually create more progressive gender norms in these states. If other states begin to adapt it then the number can go to millions more.

Our goals within the next one year is to successfully launch the partnerships in these two states - Punjab and Odisha. 

In 3 years time we will be able to provide evidence to state governments on the impact of scale up of TKT through the government school system on adolescent gender views, in at least 3 different socio-economic contexts. This will also enable us to advocate with other state governments for adoption of TKT into school curricula. If more states choose to follow this route,it will have a seminal impact on how women and girls experience their lives in India. There is also an opportunity to share demonstrated evidence of success with multiple other countries struggling with the issue.

Breakthrough has scaled up TKT to 3 other states - Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, to reach over 180,000 adolescents in grades 6-8. Successive evaluations across these states have indicated similar shifts in attitudes and behaviours - increasing girls’ age at marriage, reducing the incidence of early marriage and changing perceptions around the easy acceptance of gender based violence.

We expect that these program effects among adolescents will persist over time and lead to improved social outcomes for men and women. Breakthrough's ultimate goal is to transform gender norms to ensure girls reach their full potential. If TkT within the government school system can influence critical social outcomes such as child marriage, women’s labour force participation and reproductive decisions, it will likely have tremendous policy impact. 

In the near term, COVID-19 has pushed school calendars and state government plans into a complete overhaul, we are therefore concerned that gender attitudes may not be given priority in the coming months, despite an acknowledged surge in gender based violence due to the pandemic that has drawn attention to underlying gender norms. We have been in touch with the governments of Odisha and Punjab and both continue to be keen to implement the initiative. Also, conducting face to face school sessions and teacher training in groups may not be possible given physical distancing norms. 

A critical question that we hope to answer going forward is: How do we ensure quality of facilitation and impact of sessions in a train-the-trainer model where Breakthrough facilitators are not directly conducting sessions? In Breakthrough’s 20 years of working on norm change, we have realised that trainers are most effective after they have gone through a process of introspection and personal transformation in how they view gender norms and stereotypes. The Punjab scale up is therefore key to helping us hone our tools and training techniques. A curriculum is highly dependent on the person who delivers it and the learnings from this scale up will help Breakthrough and the sector at large develop an effective model to cascade knowledge and training techniques to master trainers and government school teachers across the country. 

The other key question that we are currently facing is the long term impact (10 years time) of TKT on adolescent lives. 

To address the Covid 19 situation, we are already looking to create more digital tools for training teachers and conducting school sessions to mitigate this risk. The pandemic is likely to impact our implementation timelines - pushing us to start in March 2021 with the new academic year.

For the quality of trainings and trainers, we have already planned a mitigation strategy for this by ensuring a rigorous training  and monitoring calendar.  We are also  creating reporting tools that will help us assess per session impact and feedback to ensure quality of sessions is closely monitored.Teachers will also be supported by a wide array of digital content that will enable them to deliver the programme more effectively.

In Haryana, researchers from JPal are tracking long-term outcomes. Jpal’s longitudinal study of the original cohort that was exposed to TKT for 2.5 years from 2013-2016 in Haryana, will provide us valuable insight into the life decisions made by these adolescents as they attain adulthood and provide us learnings to course correct and improve the curriculum or model of implementation. This will be an invaluable learning for organisations and individuals working on gender norm change across the globe. This will also help policymakers assess the value of any other government schemes aimed at improving these outcomes because one can put a monetary value on improvements in these outcomes.

J-PAL South Asia is our lead partner in the scale-up efforts and also led the evaluation of the programme in Haryana.  In Punjab and Odisha, J-PAL SA has state-wide long term institutional partnerships with state governments across multiple departments. 

Once the funding is in place, a tripartite agreement with the Government entity, J-PAL SA and Breakthrough will be signed. Here, J-PAL SA will play the role of the lead learning and knowledge partner for both the state governments. Additionally, J-PAL SA will bring its rich experience of serving as a learning and knowledge partner for scaling up evidence-based programs in education and livelihoods in the Indian context. They are well equipped to ensure that the insights generated through the pre-post survey and the process evaluation are translated operationally and at scale, to ensure high-quality implementation. 

We are already in conversation with Punjab and Odisha state governments, to partner with us and roll out two different models of implementation. In Punjab, we will be part funded by the Government of Punjab who will fund the cost of implementation of scale up in the state. In Odisha, we will first pilot the programme to demonstrate its effectiveness in 100 schools with our own resources. The Odisha state government has committed to a state-wide scale up if the programme is seen to be effective in transforming gender views. 

We are also approaching funders for resources.

The programme targets adolescents aged 11-14 years in the government school system with a view to bringing a generational shift in social norms that impact how women and girls experience their lives in India.

We deliver Taaron ki Toli (TKT - Gang of Stars), a school based gender equity programme for adolescents in grades 6-8, an unique curriculum that has been rigorously evaluated in a randomised control trial by JPal and seen to shape more progressive gender attitudes and behaviours for both boys and girls. The programme comprises 40 fortnightly classroom and assembly sessions of 45 minutes each that are embedded into the school timetable over two years. 

In Odisha and Punjab we will mainstream this approach in the government middle school system. Punjab has one of the lowest child sex ratios in the country at 846 girls for every boy indiciating the low value accorded to girls and the high rate of gender biased sex selection in the state. Odisha has a better CSR but only 16% of women in Odisha have completed secondary school because of poor social infrastructure, poverty and social norms, as compared to 38% in Punjab. Consequently, 21.3% girls are married early in Odisha as opposed to 7.6% in Punjab. 

The intervention aims to change gender norms in the long term by building the agency of the youth to question gender norms, stereotypes and practices, build intergenerational and intergender dialogue so they can make their own life choices without fear of violence or discrimination.

We have applied for partial grants from Global Innovation Fund for this. And are looking for other partners to build a more structured pipeline and process for resource development. Full funding for this will enable us to provide comprehensive evidence on mainstreaming innovative behavioural insights with the potential to address an important development problem effectively. It will enable us to implement the scale up in Odisha, as well as support the evaluation costs of scale up in Punjab, Odisha and conduct a long term longitudinal study  in Haryana and help other state governments adapt this. 

In light of the lacunae within existing gender programmes, the most cost-effective and impactful alternative may be to allocate public investment towards delivering a gender attitudes change curriculum through the government school system. Researchers have estimated that if government school teachers successfully implement that, it will require little additional cost except for training and curriculum-related materials; at scale, the two-year program along with an additional parental engagement component can cost as low as $5 per child. 

In Punjab and Odisha, the state governments have committed to delivering the programme through their system, by utilising their existing infrastructure (Punjab) and building capacity to deliver (Odisha). Additionally, with training costs likely to be amortised over more years and students, per child costs may further reduce at scale. Finally, TKT outranks other school-based programs as it provides a rigorously evaluated impact estimate and forecasts cost-effectiveness. And if other state governments start adapting this, the sustainability is ensured.

We have not raised any funds for this yet, though we have applied to Global Innovation Fund for this. The state government in Punjab will partially fund the training of teachers. 

Our total need for the project is a grant for 1.5 million USD. 60% of this money will go to JPAL for the following:

evaluation of the programme in Punjab 

evaluation of the programme in Odisha 

long term longitudinal study  in Haryana

The rest 40% will be utilised for Breakthrough to:

 make changes in curriculum

train master trainers (Punjab)

develop tools for teachers to assess impact (Punjab)

establish a model programme across 100 schools (Odisha)

train teachers for scale up (Odisha)

The total expected expenses for the organisation as a whole is 4 million USD.

Gender Inequality is a global problem and there is a need for everyone to focus on this if we are to move the needle towards a gender equal world by 2030. Otherwise it will take us 257 years to close the gap, according to the Global Gender Gap report 2020. Gender norms are powerful, pervasive values and attitudes, about gender-based social roles and behaviours that are deeply embedded in social structures. Gender norms manifest at various levels, including within households and families, communities, neighbourhoods, and wider society. They ensure the maintenance of social order, punishing or sanctioning deviance from those norms, interacting to produce outcomes which are frequently inequitable, and dynamics that are often risky for women and girls. 

Different approaches with multiple stakeholders are needed working with social traditions as well as social institutions. So collaborations around  solutions that work are key. If we can put the parts of the puzzle together we stand a bigger chance of solving the problem.

Breakthrough has an innovative solutions that has been rigorously evaluated and shown impact. The Elevate Prize and other such opportunities help us access influencers and associations that shape viewer opinions and purchasing patterns and mobilize partners for catalyzing positive, transformational change. 

Shining the light on our solutions can help create a multiplier effect that will allow us to more easily scale the work, impact more lives, and inspire others to tackle issues in their own communities—igniting a chain reaction of sustainable social change across the world. 

Funding is of course a key need of a non profit dreaming of scale. 

But other needs are also an important. As the leader of a growing organisation, mentorship and coaching are real needs, specially if you are focused on creating an organisation that creates transformed leaders for the sector, and not just good managers.

Advisors from different walks of life - from education sector, from the impact evaluation sector and from people who understand normative change and behavioural science are key to developing solutions that focus on social norm change as this is a new field and is evolving. 

Gender inequality has seen many solutions come and go and very few seem to stick. Those that stick need widespread marketing and word of mouth to become popular among organisations and people looking for solutions. 

Collaborators looking for solutions on the same issues in other geographies are important.

We are already in partnership with JPal South Asia.We would love to partner with an organisation/individual who can help turn our research into better strorytelling elements so that they can reach a wider audience. We would also love to partner with norm change experts and behaviour scientists to hone our ability to create better and targetted messages around the issue.