Surveys – The REDefine Campaign

Conducting the Survey at Auxilium Snehalaya

Auxilium Snehalaya, an orphanage in Palam Colony, opened their doors to the REDefine Campaign and allowed us to conduct a survey with their girls.

Sister Gracy stood on the doorstep of the orphanage and waved at us. After taking a few turns, we had wandered across to a set of gates belonging to the Don Bosco Ashalayam until we spotted Sister Gracy. The Auxilium Snehalaya orphanage hides behind two humble brown doors in the lanes of Palam Colony — the only indication that we were in the right place. The neighbourhood was adorned with palm trees of electric poles and cables which is so characteristic of our urban cities.

We were seated in a little waiting room where Sister Gracy asked about our mission and our work. I couldn’t help but look at the glass-enclosed bookshelves that covered the walls. We spotted our Dan Browns and Jeffrey Archers all the way to Geronimo Stiltons and Enid Blytons. We’ve sat in many NGOs, but none as oriented towards literature as this one.

Once the girls had collected in the room, we were asked to give them a short introduction to the survey, so that they were prepared for the questions that were to follow. We then gave the girls a brief on what the REDefine campaign was, and what the survey was about. Although our survey consisted of questions about periods, it was open to girls who had not had their period as well.

If you’ve read our previous articles, you would be familiar with the biggest problem we face while conducting surveys: discussion among girls. This happened less with the 16 girls we surveyed, but it happened regardless. Nonetheless, the girls enthusiastically made conversation with us and asked us how old we were, where we were from, whether we’d come back and whether they were correct in saying women don’t have periods when they’re pregnant — “maine bola tha!” (“I told you so!”)

The results of the survey are as follow:

With love,

Pranavi from the REDefine Team

Be sure to look out for this humble organisation: https://www.facebook.com/auxilium.snehalaya

Conducting the Survey at Salaam Baalak Trust

As opposed to our usual quests looking for NGOs and homes in the nooks and crannies of NCR, the Salaam Baalak Trust (SBT) was rather easy to find. When we stopped in front of the brick building our only thought was “this is different.’’ And it was; the brick building stood tall behind a massive iron gate. Once signed in, we were finally allowed to enter the vicinity. The nervousness Pranavi, Tara and I shared was immense — what if there weren’t enough surveys? Would they have stationery?

*Our member, Pranavi Jamwal, clarifying some doubts.*

Accompanied by our 63 printed surveys, we were excited to meet the girls and to hit another milestone – the REDefine Campaign’s sixth collaboration! The Salaam Baalak Trust is an Indian non-profit and non-governmental organization which provides support for street and working children in the inner cities of New Delhi and Mumbai.

hkh — *The Salaam Baalak Trust’s amphitheater.*

We were taken to a miniature amphitheater blanketed by warm sunlight and waited for the girls to gather before introducing ourselves. The girls present were between 8-17 years old. After introducing ourselves, Pranavi and I passed around the surveys while Tara distributed the pencils to the girls. There was a slight confusion as the surveys were supposed to be for 10-year-old girls and older so we had to ask each of the younger looking ones their age to confirm that we get accurate results from the data collected. It can be benefitting being a psychology student now and then.

Once they were distributed, the girls began filling out the surveys, but they also began discussing the questions along with the answers with each other. So far, this has been a major roadblock in our system during every survey we conduct. We approached clusters of girls huddled over their surveys and asked them not to discuss this because this survey was about what they think as opposed to what their friends do. We did eventually get them to stop discussing it among themselves by clarifying their doubts. They became open in terms of asking us questions to understand the survey. After this, the process was smooth and only took us about 30 minutes to wrap up.

We made a friend in a young girl named Lakshmi, who other girls told us couldn’t give the survey. She walked slowly towards the box of colour pencils and asked for a sheet nonetheless. While she became absorbed in her sheet of art, her mental disability was hastily explained to us. It was entertaining watching her organise the colour pencils with Tara as they tried to differentiate between five different kinds of pencils while catering to the other girls’ stationery demands.

Conducting the survey was successful although we interacted with fewer girls than the figure we’d been told would be present. It helped us identify what topics need to be concentrated on and talked about the most with different age groups. Here are the results of the survey:

With love,

Anshika from the REDefine Team

Check out SBT’s website: http://www.salaambaalaktrust.com/

The Survey at the ANK Foundation

Here are the results we collected from the survey we conducted at the ANK Foundation.

Two young boys guided Tara and me through the narrow, winding lanes of a little village in the middle of Noida. Tucked away behind a wall, the community buzzed in and out of local shops and living quarters. We crossed a marble mosque which shone a marvelous green in the middle of the comparatively colourless We grew slightly nervous with each step. How would the girls react? Would we be able to successfully explain our aim to them? Will we get credible results and be able to control any complications that might occur? Considering there were only two members, the possibilities were endless.

ANK is an NGO designed to help provide learning facilities to children all over Delhi/NCR who aren’t able to afford or have access to quality education. In order to achieve this, ANK has created learning centers to promote their goal, and that was where we went. We entered a dark classroom adorned with colorful posters and met eleven girls who were hastily explained who we were and what we were there to do. As soon as the word ‘period’ was uttered, coy glances were shared; a response we’d become painfully familiar with.

The ritual hunt for pens and pencils and the search for comfortable places to sit preceded answering the survey. Our first problem would soon become a frequent visitor to surveys we’d conduct in the future: the students began to discuss their answers. We explained to them that the point of the survey was to establish some solid background information for our talk, but it is something that we should have kept in mind. We happened to be the least proficient in Hindi but it was a manageable situation. The students did their best to answer, and were not hesitant to call us if they did not understand any word or question. We were able to wrap up the survey in 20-30 minutes, and as the children cheerfully waved us goodbye, we were excited to see how the talk with ANK would go.

Here is the data we collected from the survey:

Stick around!

Jhanvi from the REDefine Team

The Period Survey Conducted in Rainbow Homes

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 SETU Survey: Our Results

The survey we conducted at SETU was the first draft of a set of question that are still in the works.

Out of a total of 39 girls who gave the survey 24 girls knew what periods are while 15 did not. Additionally, majority of the girls (66.6%) attended school while only a few said that they missed school while on their period. Most of the girls at Setu utilize pads while on their periods while only one uses cloth. And, almost all the girls first heard about periods and menstruation from their mothers but none of them spoke only to their fathers about it. However, two girls said that they were introduced to it by both their parents together.

Some of the different responses to the taboos and myths that the girls face include: not being allowed to eat sour/spicy food, not being allowed to enter the temple, not being allowed to make physical contact with others, not being allowed to wear tight clothes, not being allowed to enter the kitchen or take any medicine.

These are the results for our survey:

Question 1 SETU Survey Data — ***Question 1***

Question 2 SETU Survey Data — ***Question 2***

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-1.png — **Question 3**

Question 4 SETU Survey Data — **Question 4**