Breakthrough Trust

India ranked 140 in the Global Gender Gap Report 2021,slipping 28 places from 2020. Women and girls in India face widespread violence and discrimination due to entrenched cultural norms that keep them under-educated and out of the workforce.As they face increased vulnerability, exacerbated by Covid-19,there is a need for deep-rooted,sustainable solutions to address norms that perpetuate gender-based violence and discrimination. 

Breakthrough has been working to make violence against women and girls unacceptable by transforming gender norms for 21 years.Through school and community-based programmes, we’re working with adolescents and youth to build a generation of change makers, their families, communities and the larger society to build an enabling environment.  

We seek to build a strong gender lens into the education system by working in government schools.Our intervention’s core is Taaron ki Toli (TkT), a rigorously tested 2-year school-based gender equity curriculum for grades 6-8. TkT is proven to change gender attitudes and behaviours; scaling this through government education systems will create a tipping point in building a generation of gender equal citizens.This grant will enable us to strengthen our models of deep transformation in our intervention areas to be shared with state governments to mainstream our programme into the education system.

Breakthrough’s mission is to make violence against women & girls(VAWG) unacceptable by changing the societal norms and culture that enable it by creating pioneering campaigns, training people, and developing curricula based on the thought that ‘change starts with you.’ Our approach to gender norm change has evolved over two decades and has been thoroughly tested in different contexts, giving us confidence about its effectiveness at scale. 

Over the next five years, Breakthrough will continue its interventions to reach over 2 million young people through school and community-based initiatives. We have already entered into a partnership with the Government of Punjab to introduce TkT into the school system by embedding the curriculum into the middle school syllabi state-wide and reaching over 1 million young people. Our aim is to replicate this model across states in India and run mass media campaigns that make VAWG unacceptable. 

We will continue to deepen our direct, school and community-based work to refine our interventions and test models of behaviour change to scale-up. Our interventions use the socio-ecological model,the core of which is our school programme and also work with young adults, families and communities to catalyse change and create a more gender sensitive environment overall.

India ranked 140 in the Global Gender Gap Report, 2021. Violence and discrimination against women and girls (VAWG) is normalised through cultural practices that devalue girls and justify violence.The statistics are staggering- blatant son preference has driven child-sex ratio to 919 girls:1000 boys; every fourth girl is a child bride; 1 in 3 women faces domestic violence. 

Gender-based violence is further exacerbated during crisis, evident from the impact of Covid-19 on women and girls in India with school closures leading to increased gender gaps in education, increased risk of sexual exploitation, and early & forced marriages.

Breakthrough seeks to shape progressive, new generation of young people who catalyse change around themselves and gradually transform patriarchal norms to make VAWG unacceptable. Taking a systems change perspective,we have entered into a partnership with the Punjab Government to introduce TkT into all middle schools in the state and will evaluate impact of the curriculum when incorporated into school syllabi to enable us to advocate for adoption by more states.

By working to change gender views through the education system, in communities and through high-impact media,we will eventually move to a society that values girls, ensures equal opportunity for all and doesn’t tolerate VAWG.

Breakthrough’s gender equity curriculum has been proven to be one of the most effective and rigorously tested programmes in the sector; seen to bring lasting shifts in gender views of boys and girls. We are therefore uniquely positioned with this curriculum and our deep understanding of culture and its impact on behaviours, to effectively change gender norms in India.

In engaging with young people as our principal stakeholders, we use the socio-ecological model of norm change loosely defined as a process of ‘me to we,’ in which we seek to bring transformation first at the personal level, leading to change in families, then in communities and finally in society. The recognition of every person’s capacity to be a change agent and to aggregate this over hundreds of thousands of young people who pave the way for a new order based on equity and inclusion is unique to Breakthrough.

In addition, Breakthrough has pioneered using cutting edge media and the arts to influence popular culture through impactful counter narratives that push people to question gender stereotypes. Our 360-degree campaigns use deep cultural insight to enable people to introspect on their own gender views and practices, thereby creating an impetus for change.

Breakthrough’s outcomes in the long-run are to see change in social and cultural norms so that there is increased unacceptability of gender-based discrimination and violence. While these are generally slow to move, there are significant outcomes that measure knowledge, behaviour and attitude change that ladder up to eventual norm change.  

Regressive gender norms, stereotypes and enforced societal barriers highlight an urgent need for a shift in the prevailing practices, and the requirement for gender transformative life-skills education. Breakthrough works with young people, aged 11-25 years, to shape a progressive, bold, new generation of gender equal citizens who not only bring an end to VAWG around them but will also herald in a new norm where VAWG is unacceptable. We will do this by scaling Breakthrough’s rigorously tested model of gender attitude and behaviour change, to ensure that girls and boys have equal opportunities, and are able to reach their full potential with equal access to quality education and health services and make informed decisions about their lives. Furthermore, our work with families, communities, educational institutions and governments, directly and through impactful media campaigns, will build greater gender sensitivity and reduced acceptance of violence against women and girls.