Made in Mumbai tells the stories of enterprises born in the city. The series looks first for interesting and relevant ideas: novel ways of looking at existing opportunities or problems, even concepts that address needs unfelt until now. The next box we tick is solidity: the track record of the enterprise thus far, or if it’s very new, that of the founders and investors. And the last is potential: is the business scalable (or in the case of social enterprises, replicable)?
The teens are a time of raging hormones and physiological and emotional changes. Add to that the three-letter word that both teachers and students tiptoe around, but which nevertheless finds expression in catcalls, obscene remarks, harassment and bullying. Teaching a class full of 13-year-olds can be a nightmare. Now imagine teaching them about sex.
Of course adolescents know about sex. But the information they get is rarely authentic or healthy. At least 45 per cent of urban males in the 15-24-year age group in India report having watched pornography, according to the ‘Youth in India: Situation and Needs’ report by the Government of India, based on a study by the International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai and the Population Council, New Delhi. At least 90 per cent of those surveyed claimed they needed more information on sex but didn’t know where to find it.
And that’s what Iesha Learning sees as a need and an opportunity.
Sex and fun
The Youth in India study found that just three per cent of urban youth discuss romantic relationships or reproductive processes with their parents. And 72 per cent of youngsters hide personal relationships from figures of authority. Schools usually don’t go further than covering reproductive biology. Iesha, which calls itself a one-stop resource for adolescents and educators on sexuality, takes adolescents beyond that: how they can forge a healthy identity for themselves, make the right choices, respect their peers, themselves, and their bodies.
“There’s almost no structured way that kids learn about things like reproduction, menstruation, gender, consent when they reach puberty,” says Nilima Achwal, Iesha’s founder and CEO. “A lot of the social issues we see today in India like rape or misogyny can be traced back to the fact that children are consuming the wrong kind of information.”
“Since we’re young, we have a rapport with them,” says Gauravi Lobo, Head, Operations and Chief Taboo Officer at Iesha. (The average age of the founding team is 26).
It starts with a ‘safe’ environment for the workshops, where children can open up and ask tough questions. Iesha uses the co-working space, Ministry of New, in South Mumbai.
It provides what it calls ‘fun, interactive, and safe’ workshops for adolescents (see box), and a curriculum for schools that cover puberty, reproduction, gender roles, LGBTQ issues, online safety, filtering media messages, among other topics. And it uses fun and games. The method is the key.
Getting the mix right
Iesha’s actors, the cultural context and tone are all Indian. “There’s no India-specific content available on the Internet for sexuality and gender education,” Achwal says. “We’ve created one of the only comprehensive repositories of information customised to the Indian context.” While Iesha draws much of its inspiration from the research and educational pedagogy from the Scandinavian countries, it marries these with curricula designed by the Government of India.
For instance the education and legal system in the Scandinavian countries make sure both genders are treated equally, and there is an element of fun and openness in their curriculums. But their conversations can often be irrelevant to the Indian context.
Take romantic love, for instance. “It’s great to address it in small amounts in the classroom, because it does happen,” Lobo says. “But coming in and saying that you should only marry for love is silly. In India, you marry for a lot of reasons — for family, for religion — and there’s nothing wrong with any of those things. So bridging those two is important.”
They encourage children to take their own decisions, but above all, Lobo says, “We’re very careful with not imposing our ideology because in India, a classroom is so diverse. There are people from different religions and backgrounds. The idea of our course is that all this exists in the world out there and it’s up to you to decide how you feel about it. What you have to remember is that everyone has to be respected, everyone has a story, a life, and opinions, and conflicting opinions can
co-exist.”
Breaking through
Parents can be their greatest supporters, they can also act as a wall, so the team makes it part of their task to rope in parents too. The idea is to explain how they can talk to their children as they’re going through adolescence, how to establish a rapport and communicate taboo topics. As Achwal puts it, “Because you see a massive generational divide between parents and kids.”
One common misperception they hear from parents is that sex education is a way to teach children how to have sex. They also hear about the fear that after these workshops, the kids will be even more curious, and have more questions for the parents.
Lobo’s favourite line from a parent is, ‘My child is very innocent.’
“It’s almost funny, because we found the parent has a completely different idea about their child and sometimes you can’t believe they live in the same house. ‘I’m very close to my daughter. She doesn’t do anything without my permission,’ said one, but the daughter said something completely different: ‘My mother makes so many rules for me I just don’t tell her what I do.’”
Challenges all the way
The gap can get in the way of business for Iesha. Parent-teacher associations have a strong hold on schools, so signing up a school is a long process. “It’s a very, very long sales cycle. We’re not selling them cake. We’re selling a nuanced sort of thing. So even if the school board and the teachers are on board, sometimes if the parents don’t buy in, the school just has to give up and say, ‘We really want it, but we can’t do anything.’”
Children can be resistant as well, but they typically ease into the process. And class teachers notice the transformation. In a low-income school in Mumbai, a Std VIII Teach for India classroom saw misbehaviour, harassment and bullying of teachers, especially from the boys. Iesha did a course in the classroom, and later a focus group with the teachers and the children. The teachers said that the rowdiest, most disrespectful children had turned into the most respectful and mature ones. Achwal says, “When we interviewed the boys,
we had them telling us, ‘Before, we thought it was right to force a girl to say ‘yes.’ Now, after the course, I know that it’s wrong. If I like a girl, I ask her first and if she says no, I’ll accept it and move on.’”
Growing pains
Besides schools, Iesha also partners with voluntary organisations across the country by giving out content on subscription. For example, it does not reach out directly to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation-run schools, for instance; instead it partners organisations like Teach for India and Catalyst for Social Action, and 45 orphanages all over India.
Aside from the direct interactions — which of course have their impact — Iesha also plans to start using social media. Next month, they will kick off a podcast series, No Taboos, with audio company Indus Vox Media, targeted at young adults. It will talk about everything from love, sex, relationships, to gender and dress codes in colleges. Also on the to-do list, YouTube videos.
The business goal: make Iesha the go-to resource for sexuality education for educators and parents. To do that, they aim to continue to prove that the children they interact with become active voices in their communities, where they feel confident and empowered by virtue of having made the right decisions.
“They’re not beholden to certain ways of acting just because the media is telling them so,” Achwal says. “They’re practising consent, they feel good about their bodies, and the rest of their peers follow them. I feel this is a ripple effect. In my vision we can reach hundreds of thousands of students across the country if we tie up with the government, with training institutes.”
Iesha Learning’s courses
Grown-Up Stuff
A five-week programme for pre-teens that helps them navigate their changing bodies.
Age: 11-12 years
The Tricky Teen Years: A Workshop For Parents
A two-hour workshop designed to equip parents to educate their children, answer those tough questions, and be a supportive figure during adolescence.
Smart Choices: Young Thought Leadership Programme
A five-week programme for teenagers to help them make safe and healthy choices, including discussions about safety, consent, sexually transmitted infections, peer pressure, bullying, gender roles, filtering media messages, and alternative sexualities.
Age: 13-15 years
Iesha Learning
Founder: Nilima Achwal, Gauravi Lobo. Founded: 2015. Funding: Bootstrapped and first round from family and friends. Capital Rs. 25 lakh. Employees:Three full-time, one part-time Web: ieshalearning.com
