In Mandala, a slum settlement in Mankhurd, education is luxury. Ironically, young girls here say that their female relatives in the villages are probably better off. “At least they get a free bicycle [given by state authorities] to go to school daily,” one of them says, when we meet them on a weekday afternoon. For nearly a year now, this room has become their refuge. After school classes moved online in 2020 and academics took a beating, many parents saw marriage as the next best option to secure the future of their daughters. Girls who had barely completed Class XII were becoming young brides. It was a chain reaction of sorts, they tell us. 

In June last year, NGO PUKAR took 60 of them under its wing. Seven months on, the girls are spearheading a campaign to address the lack of access to education for young women in the area. The initiative is part of a joint effort with Rise Up, a global US-based NGO that activates girls and women to transform their lives. It’s not just Mandala where the seeds of change are being sown. PUKAR has co-opted adolescent girls between 15 and 18 from Dharavi and Sewri’s Kuala Bunder too.