Standing on streets against Eve-teasing

The Life Skills empowerment program at Mumbai Smiles caters to the adolescent girls in the age group of 12 to 19 yrs. The beneficiaries under this program are provided information on Life skills, health, nutrition, education and many more such subjects, which would benefit them in the long run.

It is said that Actions speak louder than words. LSE program completed four months and the girls came up with the idea of organizing a street play on eve teasing. The idea was suggested by the girls themselves as they face this problem on a regular basis in their community. The girls feel that the society needs to be educated at large as incidents of eve teasing happen across all strata’s of society – from slums to good localities. These girls have taken up the responsibility of educating the society. They came up with a unique name – “Road Romeo” for the play. The main plot of this play revolves around the issue of parents asking their daughters to mellow down and urging them to keep quiet when they confront any incidents of Eve teasing. The girls in the street play have demonstrated how avoiding any action against culprits leads to heinous crimes like rape, acidic attacks etc.

By the end of the play, a general question arises among the audience – “Whether it’s a crime to be a girl and why is she unable to move around like others?” At Mumbai Smiles we strongly believe that women have an equal right to move around like others, without a threat to their safety and that she should not be kept at home under the pretext of such incidents. She should raise her voice to such incidents so that society can become aware of such issues. The girls, through their play, motivated the parents and youth in the community to take the onus of the situation and act upon it to save their daughters and sisters from such situations