For Maqdood Ali, 52, it was the jaw dropping, eye-popping moment of his life. His 16-year-old daughter Nazia, eyes downcast, voice firm, had just told him he shouldn't be sharing shaving blades. "You run the risk of contracting the HIV virus,” his painfully shy daughter said to him.

Nazia is not alone.

Some 24 kilometres from Allahabad, in Purai ka Purva and its 39 neighbouring villages dominated by brick kiln workers, more than 200 girls of Nazia's age are taking messages of HIV/AIDS prevention to homes dominated by 15,000 landless people belonging to the scheduled and backward castes (SC and BC). It is a population that subsists on just Rs 1,000 a month and wherein only 12.42 per cent of the women are literate (against the district's overall average of 62.1).

Every morning, from 10, the girls gather in a small, brick room to learn to sew, stitch and embroider. Their teacher is 28-year-old Jyoti Tiwari, a trained public health worker, who between tips on matching threads and setting patterns, weaves in lessons on adolescent sexuality, health and hygiene. Tiwari is firm in her conviction that this is awareness the girls cannot do without.

Vulnerability
In a state where there are 1,751 reported cases of AIDS, where 5,000 people contracted the virus in the last year and a half and where teachers are threatening a bonfire of text books that have a solitary chapter on adolescent sexuality (incidentally wrapped in the more acceptable term: ‘Adolescent Education Programme’), such acceptance is clearly rare.

But at the Kishori Shikshan evam Prashikshan Kendra, one of the four centres that runs in the Korihar block of Allahabad and which draws in girls from 10 neighbouring villages, there is not a single unconvinced voice.

There is after all the community's greater vulnerability to contend with.  For six months in a year, most men of these villages stay away from their homes. They seek work in brick kilns in Punjab, Jharkhand and Bihar.

The local furnace owners won't employ them for fear of local politics and unionism, so they have to travel far to find employment.

Risky behaviour thus becomes the norm. And it's the women who will bear the brunt in the long run.

At the Kendra, the giggles at the mention of HIV/AIDS have not completely died but the girls are curious and enthusiastic. Their teacher brings in debates in a most matter of fact manner. Thus a needle prick becomes the starting point for a discussion on sources of transmission while local gossip about a man intent on leaving his wife for another woman, turns into spirited talk about the physical and social benefits of monogamy and extends to the need for women to earn their living.

The centre offers the adolescent girls, many who dropped out of school after one or two years of formal schooling, six months of education that puts them at par with primary school leavers and gives them a certificate that declares that a basic training in health and stitching has been completed. Since the project began in February last year, 34 such certificates have been awarded and representatives of PUPUS, the NGO running the centre claim to be in talk with the district administration to grant recognition to the certificates so that the girls can apply for jobs at Anganwadis or as village health workers.

"We are able to talk about such issues, because the mothers have supported us. Though illiterate, they have been firm that their daughters' lot should be better than theirs. It is this hope for a brighter, more healthier tomorrow that has kept us going", says Tiwari.

Fear of abuse
It is a similar hope lighting the lives of 75 adolescent girls at the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) at the Kalakakar block, some 40 kilometres from Purai ka Purva. The KGBVs, run under the Government of India's ambitious Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, are residential schools to provide schooling up to class 8 to girls belonging predominantly to the SC, ST, OBC and minorities in difficult areas. The Kalakakar KGBV is run by Mahila Samakhya, a programme launched with Dutch assistance in 1989 for empowering and educating rural women.

When the girls first come to the school, detailed personal profiles are prepared.  Anita Singh, a 28-year-old teacher at the KGBV says one disturbing answer jumps up from all profiles. "Whenever we ask the girls who/what they are afraid of, they invariably name fathers, brothers, cousins and uncles. The implication is clearly that there is some physical or sexual abuse involved which makes all the girls scared of their closest male relatives,” Singh points out.

These observations are validated by the Study on Child Abuse, India 2007, conducted by the central Ministry for Women and Child Development. The study questioned 12,447 children belonging to the five different categories including children in the family environment/in schools/in institutions/at work and street children to look at various forms of sexual abuse and concluded that 53.22 per cent  of the respondents (of those 47.06 per cent girls) had been sexually abused. Abuse starts as early as five years, gains momentum 10 years onward and peaks at 12 to 15 years. And almost 53 per cent of those abused, face it at home.

"Talking about sexuality, HIV and AIDS is no longer an option. If not now, when?" asks Singh who doubles up as the girls' karate teacher. The taboos are difficult to break and teachers start by talking about their own unpleasant experiences, real or made up. And though the girls initially reject the teachers as "ganda" (Dirty) they do seek private audiences to discuss problems that imagined "friends" have faced.

Shared narratives
The course material has also been designed as a series of shared narratives. "We discuss case studies, ask questions, discuss possibilities, sing and dance and are quite often surprised by the kind of questions the girls ask", says Singh who emphasizes that such knowledge is an important component of instilling the self confidence that prompts girls to demand their right to education and also tackle instances of child marriage within their villages.

A similar conclusion has been reached by the First International Women's Summit on Women's Leadership and HIV/AIDS held in Nairobi between July five and 8 this year. The 10 point action plan developed at the summit focuses on developing leadership of women and girls to respond to HIV and AIDS. The statement concludes with the hope: "We can lead the change we wish to see in the world."

In their own corners of the world, Nazia, Jyoti and Anita are already leading that change.