Truly chivalrous

With an objective of helping young boys become good and unbiased men, Sadani has started a project named Yuva Maitri friendship among youth. The project aims to enable young men to adopt positive models of masculinity that promote gender sensitivity and help prevent violence and abuse of women.

8220;When the problem is violence against women by men, then the solution lies in changing both and not one. There have been efforts to tell women to be more aware of their rights but there is no one to tell men that what and why they should not be doing,8221; says Sadani, adding, 8220;The best thing is to change men so that such things could be avoided.8221;

Starting with his project, Yuva Maitri, Sadani identified five rural colleges and one city-based college of Pune district and engaged first year students in his project. Elaborating about engaging only first year students in the project Sadani says that at this age, students are more attracted to the opposite sex and their mind tend to think about every thing that is 8216;forbidden8217; in society. They tend to make up wrong impression of things and indulge into wrong deeds like eve teasing, watching porn, or even looking down at girls.

After a successful attempt in Mumbai, Sadani chose Pune for his noble project. He selected 33 students from six colleges and arranged for sessions where boys came up with questions that haunted their minds.

8220;The questions that were put up by the boys ranged from issue of reservation for women to eve-teasing and rape. We complied these questions and then we started wall newspapers for colleges. We started placing a bulletin on the college8217;s notice board wherein we would not only inform the students about gender bias issues but also ask for their response. Initially this was not well received but later it turned out to be a big hit. And then we went ahead with street plays, awareness songs and many contests,8221; elaborates Sadani.

The effort seems successful when, while giving his feed back on his experinece, Ganesh Phule, a trained maitri of the project, comes up with his own example and does not goes on to speak big on social issues. 8220;The best positive and most practical solution was to change ourselves. After being a part of Yuva Maitri, I realised that on what all spheres a girl is still denied freedom. The first example came from my home where I nearly had to launch a battle in order to convince my parents to let my sister choose her life partner. Equal participation of men in fight against denial of rights to women is better solution, 8221; he feels.

Another changed-and-happy member of the project is Sunil Chachar, student, who took up to household work thereby annoying his relatives and society members. 8220;After joining Yuva Maitri I realised that my mother should also have time for herself so I started doing household work. My relatives stopped talking to me for this,8221; says Chachar.

Another experience, which Chachar feels is one of his greatest achievements, was of changing four utterly notorious boys of a local college. 8220;The college management had already decided to expel those boys given their bad behaviour towards girls. After taking permission from the principal, I had a talk with these boys who confessed that they wanted to befriend girls but every girl hated them. So they started torturing girls by passing rude remarks on them. We explained to those boys that they have to win the confidence of a girl before befriending her. And to my surprise those boys were not only much accepted students of that college. But one of them also won the Ideal Students award,8221; says Chachar.

Another 23-year-old member of the project, Amol Kale, who still feels that he has along way to go before he starts teaching others. He says, 8220;I am in learning stage. I was one who used to get angry if I saw any male friend of my sister. But now I understand that it takes a pure and clean mind to be good and feel good. Thanks to Yuva Maitri project, which helped me improve. I now think what affect my action would have on others.