Milaan Be the Change

Milaan is a social impact non-profit organization working with and for adolescent girls from socially and economically marginalized communities in Ind Read moreia with a mission to create pathways for them to be educated, healthy, and safe. In the last 15 years, the organization has worked with thousands of girls through its innovative and data-driven programs, enabling them access to knowledge, skills, and social networks to explore their full potential. We design, develop and implement programs to drive system-level change, challenging and changing gender-regressive social norms and creating pathways to a more gender-equal and inclusive world. In 2007, Milaan was founded by a group of students from the University of Delhi to educate, enable and empower children in rural India. One of its first projects was as an informal education center in Kaintain Village of Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, which is now grown as a K-12 school with over 550 children and a free hostel for girls. Our experience of managing the school exposed us to the problem of gender inequality in education, with a higher percentage of girls dropping out as they go up the grade ladder. For five years, we ran multiple pilot projects to test scalable solutions to the problem, which included running informal education centers for school dropout girls; working within government schools to enhance learning and retention; breaking silence and barriers on menstrual management, etc. Milaan works in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Karnataka, with and for adolescent girls, through its various projects, including - The Girl Icon Program, Unmukt - Addressing Gender-Based Violence, Uttar Pradesh Coalition to Empower Adolescent Girls - a learning and advocacy platform with 30 CBOs representing 27 districts. Each of our programs is an outcome of our learnings from our earlier programs and addresses the challenges adolescent girls face in rural India. Our choice of geographies is also based on our analysis of the population of adolescent girls and the human development indices.

Started in 2007, Milaan is a social impact non-profit organisation working with and for
adolescent girls from socially and economically marginalised communities in India
with a mission to create pathways for them to be educated, healthy and safe. In the
last 15 years, the organisation, through its innovative and data-driven programs, has
worked with thousands of girls enabling them with access to knowledge, skills, and
social networks, critical for them to explore their full potential.

Milaan’s journey started with the education sector, with the Milaan School in a
remote village in Uttar Pradesh which has now grown to over 550 children and has consistently delivered 100% pass results in grade 10 and 12, in the past 5 years.

Within the initial years, we drew our attention to the vulnerable social position of adolescent girls. Our learnings from running the school in a rural village and non-formal educational centers for adolescent girls across 4 districts in Uttar Pradesh, persuaded us to go deeper to understand gender inequality in education and the need to work within the communities to address the social structural barriers to education for girls.

We consolidated our work in the traditional education delivery model and pivoted from the alternative educational center model to working within communities, with and for girls to access secondary education provided by the government. In the process, we learned from our research the interconnecting issues such as education, child marriage, sexual and reproductive health, and violence against women and girls, that impact girls’ education and identify geographies that are home to the largest number of school dropouts girls.

Our learning lead us to design, develop and implement program aiming to drive system-level change, challenging and changing gender regressive social norms and creating pathways to a more gender equal and inclusive world. Our flagship program, the Girl Icon Program have impacted over 45,000 girls and 500,000 community members in it's 8 years of journey. In 2018, Milaan started the Uttar Pradesh Coalition to Empower Girls, a one of its kind platform to bring together community based organisations working in Uttar Pradesh, with and for adolescent girls, to learn, share and advocate. The coalition today has over 30 member representing over 20 districts in Uttar Pradesh.

In 2019, Milaan launched the COVID Relief and Resilience Building project, which supported over 250,000 people, who were hit by the dual effect of poverty and pandemic.

Milaan is an active participant in women- and girls-focused coalitions such as Coalition for Adolescent Girls (CAG), Girls Opportunity Alliance by Obama Foundation, Women Empowerment Coalition led by Edelgive Foundation, and Young People Voices – National Working Group, and 10 to 19 Community – Dasra Adolescent Collaborative.

The impact of our work is covered in various regional, national and international media organisations such as CNN International, OZY, The Lily - Washington Post, Frankie Magazine, Your Story, etc.