The Naz Foundation (India) Trust (2020)
In brief
The Naz Foundation (India) Trust (Naz) is a non-profit organisation working in the sectors of Gender, Health and Rights across India with a vision to create a just and equitable society by transforming individuals from socially and economically excluded communities into agents of change.
Naz’s Young People’s Initiative (YPI) is a sport for development programme for adolescents and youth that uses the medium of sport to deliver crucial life skills education on the issues of menstrual health, sexual and reproductive health and rights, communication, financial literacy, gender-based violence etc. Since 2006, the programme has empowered more than 115’000 Adolescent Girls and Young Women.
Problem to be tackled
Punjab is a state in northern India and is home to 2.30% of India’s population, 27.7 million, making it the 16th most populous state in India. There are good reasons to focus girls and women’s empowerment programmes in Punjab as they face many challenges, especially in the villages of Punjab, early-age childbearing, infant and childhood mortality, practice of female feticide and extensive son-preference to name a few .
Local partner
Naz works through its partnership model with partners in Punjab for the YPI implementation in Punjab to make the programme accessible for more adolescent girls and young women.
Background
Sport for development programme activities include netball and life skills education for adolescent girls in schools and communities with the modules a) netball (practice, practice matches, intra- and inter-school tournament), b) Be Yourself (self-awareness and interpersonal skills), c) Be Healthy (hygiene – also menstrual – and sexual reproductive health and right topics), d) Be Empowered (gender, gender-based violence, community resources) and e) Be Money Savvy (financial literacy).
Beneficiaries
Naz started the YPI in Delhi and expanded to Mumbai and Bangalore. Realizing that there are more than 120 million adolescent girls in India with similar needs, Naz expanded the YPI outreach through a partnership model. This partnership model aims at building an ecosystem of organisations that provides quality programming for adolescent girls through the sport for development approach, building young women’s leadership and safeguarding children in sport.
Up to early 2020, more than 16’000 girls in rural and urban Tamil Nadu and Punjab have benefitted from the programme through this partnership model. Partners are selected on various criteria such as having processes and procedures in place to implement a programme, having support from stakeholder and access to the target group. Naz provides capacity building to the organisations, not only in executing the YPI, but also in organisational development to sustain the programme beyond Naz’s regrading approach.
SOL’s contribution
With the support from The SOL Foundation, Naz will be able to further develop their proven Young People’s Initiative using netball in Punjab; the programme will be implemented in conjunction with local partners.
Project partner
The Naz Foundation (India) Trust targets to build vibrant eco-systems that a) energise and enable individuals from excluded communities to realise their potential and act as agents of change, 2) build partnerships, networks and linkages to catalyse a critical mass of such leaders and 3) engage and influence governments, businesses and other stakeholders to take this movement to scale.
Naz operates a residential centre for 19 children and young adults living with HIV/AIDS called the ‘Naz India Care Home’ in which it provides holistic (educational, psychological, medical, nutritional or recreational) support and prepares them to live a healthy and independent life.
Naz conducts training and workshops on issues related to sexuality and sexual health with the objective to build the capacity of individuals and organisations to raise their awareness to bring a positive change in their attitudes.
Naz’s MSM (Men-having-Sex-with-Men) programme provides the members of the LGBTQA+ queer community with services for counselling and support free of cost.
