The REDefine members were pumped to meet our largest group of girls, 73 to be exact, yet (today, it was just Tara, Jhanvi, Anshika, Shresth, and Meher) and introduce them to our first male member. In a flurry of excitement, we frantically printed 100 surveys that hadn’t been assembled beforehand. Would the survey prove more successful and yield more information than the last time?
One survey was for girls who had already started their periods while the other one was for girls who had not yet. Both the surveys were printed out in Hindi and had the options ‘yes’ or ‘haan’, ‘no’ or ‘naa’ and ‘maybe’ or ‘shaayad’.
Hidden behind the crowded lanes of Kilkari, the Rainbow Home was like a gated island of joy — tucked away from the thousands of men going about their day. It was, admittedly, an experience navigating the sea of people with only a confused Google Maps as a compass. When we reached the were greeted by a courtyard of girls playing during their lunch break. They were organized into two classrooms on the basis of their age groups. And thus, we began our survey!
A buzz grew in the rooms as the girls discovered what the survey was really about. As with all most of our encounters, the initial lack of response was slightly disheartening but, following the trend, whispers slowly turned to enthusiastic chatter. We noticed some girls were copying each other’s answers or asking their teachers for help. As much as we tried to stop this by telling them to answer their own survey honestly and by emphasising the fact that it was not a test, a few girls’ answers were not their own. Therefore, the data collected from this survey was not of the quality we had intended it to be.
Some of the younger girls couldn’t understand the questions while some could not read or write. We sat each of these girls down and guided them through the survey. This process actually facilitated a lot of discussions and highlighted a few issues with the survey. We observed that sentences needed to be framed better and the confusion between what a question was asking and the objective or aim of that question needed to be addressed.
The walk back to the car was composed of a feedback session of sorts where we discussed the survey questions, our individual experiences while helping the girls fill in the surveys, their reactions to some of the questions and what topics our upcoming talk with them could include. This was documented in a voice recording that soon became tradition following any interactions we had.
In conclusion, the survey was a partial success as we managed to take a survey of our first large group of girls and also figured out the flaws in our survey.
The results of the survey are as follow:
Happy reading!
Meher from the REDefine Team.
The REDefine Campaign 