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How Teen Girls in Mumbai Are Learning to Stand Tall
As Nausheen‚ a 14-year-old Mumbai schoolgirl‚ demonstrates the kicks and punches she has newly learned‚ there is a perceptible change in her body language. From a shy‚ giggly teenager‚ she turns into a budding supergirl: somehow she seems taller‚ her stance straighter and her voice louder.Â
“When I practice these moves‚ I feel a surge of power inside me‚” she says. “I feel like I don’t have any fear.”
Nausheen has been learning martial arts — among other concepts such as consent and communication — at the free biweekly workshops conducted by the nonprofit MukkaMaar at her government school in a crowded Mumbai suburb. “I have learned to be strong and to face people with confidence‚” she says‚ “whether it is my parents at home or strangers outside.”
MukkaMaar partners with 56 government schools in Mumbai. Courtesy of MukkaMaar
Contrast this with what MukkaMaar’s founder Ishita Sharma remembers from a casual conversation with a group of middle-school girls a few years ago. When asked what they would do if someone attacked them on the streets‚ they unanimously responded: Shout bachao bachao! (help).Â
“They didn’t even think about it‚” Sharma says. “It was a natural response to expect someone else to come and save them‚ because that is what they have been taught‚ what they have seen in movies.”
It was with the basic aim to shift this control from the outsider to the individual that Sharma started MukkaMaar — roughly translating to “throw a punch” — as an empowerment program for adolescent girls. “Women need to take responsibility for their own safety and not succumb to the ‘What will the poor woman do?’ narrative‚” she explains.Â
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