RISE India Trust in partnership with Schools of Equality implemented an activity-based gender equality training program to enable students to examine the concept of equality, power and injustice in the context of gender and its attendant issues including class, religion, sexuality, disability and caste; understand how societal institutions, media and culture perpetuate violence and discrimination; and shift social attitudes that perpetuate various forms of social injustice. The sessions are not of lecture format but instead use activities and classroom discussions to engage the students.
A team of facilitators engaged our with students and helped them to articulate their views on equality and social justice using multiple modes of expression. The program helped the students to understand the stereotypes, inequality, different forms of social injustice and its impact and culminated in students identifying different ways to stand up and speak up about how to work towards equality.
At the end of the school term students conducted a street play where they used theatre, dance and music to share their personal stories, classroom conversations and learning with their parents, the school staff and the public.
RISE School was set up in a remote village where the requirement for a quality school was very high. A detailed survey was carried out in early 2000 and Samiyandipudhur village in Pollachi taluk, Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu was identified as an ideal location to start a school for rural children as there was a need for a school which provide equal educational opportunities as their urban peers at affordable cost.