Problem

Girls often compromise their dreams, accept that they must resign to fate, being born in a female body.
1 in 3 women in India face one or more forms of violence in her lifetime. Violence and the threat of violence strips girls of their basic rights and fuels societal barriers that limit them from achieving their full potential.
Society has normalised itself to crime against women, the same way it has normalised ‘weakness’ attributed to the female body.
A report published by NGO-Akshara, working on women empowerment stated that while ‘Stay home-stay safe’ was the norm to deter Covid, for many women across India it was the most unsafe time, being locked with an abusive and violent intimate partner. There is enough evidence that suggests that a female is habituated to feel a prisoner of her own body, as she feels weak and helpless.
She starts looking at the female body as a deterrent to her dreams, rather as a voice and agency to live her life fully.
The emphasis on being soft, gentle, and ladylike has discouraged them from developing their physical potential, or expressing anger or aggression in any active or physical way. (Searles and Follansbee, 1984)
Solution

MukkaMaar works on the premise that each girl has a unique strength to fight and navigate conflicting situations that may arise throughout her life.
MukkaMaar recognises the role of the body in determining our own self-perception (confidence, self-esteem, self-efficacy, assertiveness) and how this hampered by gendered mindsets, creating barriers for girls to explore their true abilities. The program harnesses the power of these perceptions to enable the emergence of a stronger, powerful self in girls- one that helps them to voice their opinions, be bold, and place themselves first.
The 3 year in-school program with adolescents girls covers a wide variety of topics including identification of types of violence, understanding the continuum of violence and how it systematically creates barriers for girls and women throughout life, ability to build one’s own narrative of culture instead of adherence to norms, life skills (fitness, assertiveness, negotiation, critical thinking, physical and verbal self-defence skills), knowledge of rights, laws to protect children and women and menstrual hygiene management.
The same curriculum has been condensed into an online chatbot based platform called ‘POWER with Mukki’, which gives an opportunity to girls to learn and practice at their own pace, on any device that has WhatsApp.
Leveraging existing infrastructure
We work in partnership with government education departments to deliver our programs to students and teachers within government schools for sustained impact.
Voices of MukkaMaar
Published in
Individual and systemic solutions
Adolescents
Self Defence*
‘MukkaMaar Girls’ and ‘POWER with Mukki’ are offline and digital programs that work with girls aged 11-14. The programs build self-esteem, self-efficacy and assertiveness with a focus on violence prevention and participatory behaviour and norms around sexual violence.
Both programs are designed after thorough secondary research on existing promising solutions to build agency in adolescent girls. ‘MukkaMaar Girls’ has been running in BMC (Municipal corporation of Mumbai) schools since 2017.
Adults
Equity Labs
Under the ‘Equity Labs’ program, MukkaMaar develops and implements programs for adults working with adolescents to create gender equitable spaces and practices within learning environments.
The program supports the development of MukkaMaar Fellows, who are supported to run the ‘MukkaMaar Girls’ program in schools, as well as interventions to support the Physical Education and Education department to create gender-equitable and safe schools.
Contribute
MAKE A DONATION
We rely on your magnanimity to aid us in reaching out to more girls – supporting them while they get the tools to defend themselves. Your contribution is vital to their safety. Join us and let our brave-hearts know, they’re not alone!
VOLUNTEER WITH US
Do you think girls are strong? Come be part of a cause where your contribution makes a world of difference. Volunteering is a simple way of offering your skills, and gets you involved in the fundamental levels of the organisation!