Breakthrough’s Monitoring and Evaluation program has proven that the uniqueness of the Bell Bajao campaign is not just in its multimedia activities but also in deeply rooting them to the ground by the community activities carried on under the Leadership Program.

Breakthrough’s Education team has been relentlessly building leaders, whom we call the Rights Advocates, from various communities across the country including places as far as Leh in the North to Mangalore in the south. The team uses innovative tools and participatory trainings methods to reach out.

Over the last 5 years we have built capacities of around 40,000 individuals who then mobilized over 100,000 individuals in their own communities.

If you think there is a leader in you, join the program, become a Rights Advocate.

Meet the Rights Advocates

Awdhesh, an HIV+ man in India, was let go when it was discovered he was positive. He decided to do something about it and joined an organization in U.P. India. After receiving an HIV training by Breakthrough, Awdhesh, now a Rights Advocates trains his own community.

Breakthrough’s Rights Advocates formed an all girls’ theater troupe in Lucknow, India and used jaw-dropping puppets to train women in the community on HIV/AIDS and women’s rights issues. Many of the girls, once unable to talk about such issues, now feel empowered by all they have learned.

Sarita took the Breakthrough training in Nov’09. Before the training she had never heard of domestic violence or gender issue. She knew that women get beaten up but didn’t know how to articulate that as a rights violation and didn’t know what to do about it. After the training she felt empowered.

Prabha Devi Ji

The sister of one of our Rights Advocate, Shamshad lived in abject poverty and was a victim of Domestic violence for many years. She tried taking recourse to police and made trips to the protection officer under PWDV Act but the system turned a deaf ear to her. On 1st Dec 09 unable to bear the beating she committed suicide. The above video is her statement recorded some time earlier when we had gone to meet her.

One of our rights advocates, Kaamini took action against a man who used to regularly get drunk and create nuisance in the neighborhood. This is her story of how she rang the bell, what is yours?

Mehrunissa and Tarannum are two Muslim women in Lucknow, who teach child labourers in a local school. They talk about ideas of education and exposure among lower middle class Muslim societies, their own experiences, and prejudice faced by their friends and peers. They talk about their mothers and the remarkable perseverance they showed in educating their daughters. Through anecdotes, stories, hearsay, jokes and conversation we are able to get a glimpse into the world of these women and become aware of deep rooted prejudices that still exist about educating women.

Suresh has been associated with Breakthrough since 2007. Since then he has become a Breakthrough Rights Advocate and a more prolific human rights activist. As someone who is HIV+, he has worked tirelessly to sensitise he world around home, but has always believed that change begins at home. Apart from having taken on the responsibilty for most domestic chores, Suresh has traveled with Breakthrough’s Bell Bajao video vans all across Karnataka, making sure that we and our campaign against domestic violence breaks through