When Dhiren Pratap Singh laid the foundation of Milaan, Be The Change, he was in just in college. He began to wonder what he could do for a country that still needed a lot to change.
After six weeks of volunteering with a non-profit to teach poor children, he realized that the task would not be easy.
“I just wanted to teach them the alphabets in English, how to count to a 100 and one rhyme. At the end of six weeks, I realized that the challenges were bigger than I thought,” he said.
When he returned to college, he started a conversation with his friends about doing something for children like these. They came up with the name Milaan (a combination of “Milan” which means union and “Elaan” meaning declaration) and began their journey.
They started off running a learning centre next to a primary school in Sitapur where they provided supplies and after-school learning facilities for the children. The next year, the community asked them to build a school.
Till date, Milaan identifies themselves as a people driven organization that has invested deeply in their relationships with the community.
As their journey continued, the team began to see that across caste, religion or class, the most vulnerable group remained the same – adolescent girls.
This was the start of Milaan’s Girl Icon fellowship, a groundbreaking movement of faith in voices that were overlooked till then.
The team wanted to know what the needs and aspirations of these adolescent girls from poor communities were. They wanted to create a safe space where these girls felt empowered to raise their voices. But they knew that this would not be easy.
“Every time someone raises their voice, there is a pushback,” said Dhiren.
They knew that these girls would need a support system within their communities to give them the courage to keep the fight going. The Girl Icon fellowship was formed keeping these two needs in mind. Milaan identifies girls who have the courage to challenge grassroot problems like the child marriage, the lack of education or sanitation facilities. They train these girls to go back to their communities and form a peer group of 20 other girls. With the guidance of Milaan over a period of two years, these groups are implementing actions for problems they identify within their communities.
They provide a five-year mentorship after the first two years during which each Girl Icon has an individual mentor. They help these girls map out individual development plans for themselves during periods where they will have to make some of the most important decisions of their lives.
The girls learn from each other’s diversity and build their confidence. The fellowship gives them a sense of identity and ownership that they did not have till then.
Here’s a video of two of Milaan’s Girl Icons who have begun to create ripples of change in their villages.
Milaan has raised 114 Girl Icons in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka till date. Click here to become a part of building this community of girl heroes across India by giving to support a Girl Icon today.