1. Engaging Coaches and Athletes in Fostering
Gender Equity and Reducing violence
against girls and women
Findings from the Parivartan Program in Mumbai, India

2. Why Sports? Why Coaches?
Sports
Sports is predominantly a ‘masculine’ institution
 Power, control and entitlement
It is critical to confront and question masculinity norms and
practices within the sports
Coaches
Coaches embody power, hierarchy and inequality and are
looked up as role models

3. What is Parivartan?
It means “Transformation” (Change for Better)
 individual transformation leading to social transformation
Based on the US Model “Coaching Boys into Men”
Implemented in Mumbai in formal and informal settings
with support from
Futures Without Violence
MSSA, Apnalaya, Breakthrough
NIKE FOUNDATION

4. What did we want to accomplish
through Parivartan ?
Among the male coaches/mentors and athletes:
Raise awareness about abusive and disrespectful behavior
Promote gender-equitable, non-violent attitudes
Develop skills to speak up and intervene when witnessing harmful and
disrespectful behaviors
 This would contribute to transforming damaging masculine norms that
condone abuse against women and girls, thereby improving their dignity
and safety.

5. Formative Research: Setting the
Field
Key Findings from the formative research set the field for the
program (29 in-depth/6 FGD):
 Coaches still believe in the segregated role of girls and boys
 Coaches don’t feel comfortable going beyond cricket coaching
 It is something new to them but they are willing and recognize the
importance
The ideal coach serves as a mirror to reflect back which we fail to see
about ourselves; coach is someone who really cares a lot ‐ and can
contribute significantly to the quality of life of an athlete.

6. Program Design
 Quasi-experimental with two arms,
 Experiment group (25 schools with 377 athletes & 16 Mentors
with 228 athletes)
 Control group (20 schools with 286 athletes & 15 Mentors with
178 athletes)
 Public Education Campaign:
• 9750 boys and girls at the school & community level.
• Community men and women
 Coaches (45) and mentors (31)
 Core Coaches Group/Master Trainers (10 members;
including intervention partners and coaches)

7. Intervention Component
 Mentors/Coaches:
Coaching Clinic
Workshops and training
 Gender norms, violence
Sessions on Cards
 Facilitation
 communication
Materials:
Card Series; Coaches Handbook; Diary; Banners;
Posters; stickers, Comic strips

8. Intervention component
 Athletes:
Cricket Coaching, usual for school and through coaches clinic
for community
Weekly Sessions by coaches/mentors using card series
 respect,
 Fair-play,
 Aggression and abusive language,
 violence including sexual violence and harassment,
 intention to intervene, and
 bystander intervention

9. How did Parivartan work in the
field?
Workshops for Coaches & Mentors led by Leadership
Council & implementing organizations (12 days/4
months)
Build perspectives and self reflection around gender
and violence; engage athletes in critical thinking
Coaches & Mentors used ‘card series’ to engage athletes, talk
to them in the field & use real examples as ‘teachable’
moments (12 cards/6 months)

10. What changes did we achieve
through this program?

11. School and community athletes in the program became more
supportive of gender equity than non-participants
Manhood & Masculinity
School Community

12. School and community athletes in the program became
more supportive of gender equity than non-participants.
Agreement with traditional notions about women
and girls also declined:
A wife should always obey her husband
Violence against girls are perpetrated by strangers
If a girls says no, it means yes
Boys’ Controlling Behaviors
Less improvement especially among school athletes

13. The community athletes became significantly less
supportive of the physical abuse of girls.
There was a decline in agreement with all seven
statements about when girls deserve to be beaten among
community athletes
But strong agreement continued for “when she doesn’t
help with household chores”
School athletes did not show a corresponding level of
change

14. School and community athletes report greater
intentions to positively intervene in response to
hypothetical scenarios of abuse against girls.
School athletes in response to observing sexual joking about a girl
or a girl being sexually assaulted.
Community athletes in response to sexual joking, assaulting a girl
sexually, yelling at girls and spreading sexual rumors about girls.

15. Despite improvements in
intentions to intervene, there
were no significant changes in
their bystander
intervention behaviors.

16. The athletes report less perpetration of violence.
Peer violence shows some decline but still remains high among
both the school and community athletes.
Among the community athletes, both program and non-
program participants report a decline in sexually abusive
behaviors.
the result shows some change, which should be interpreted as a
promising change.
 These findings point to the need for more in-depth research

17. What effects did participation in the
training and the overall program have on
the coaches?

18. Coaches & mentors became more
supportive of equitable gender roles
and relationships.
“The program helped me think how as men and women we are
all equal. Earlier I used to think that men are always powerful
and they can do anything that they want. But now I think in a
different way”.
‘Sharing of powers gives more power’

19. Coaches and mentors wrestled
with women’s and girls’ mobility.
They identified various security and safety considerations for
justifying men’s control over their behavior.
This is an area that needs greater attention.

20. The program was well accepted by
both the coaches & athletes
“With each session, I can vouch there was a change in the cognition
of these boys. Once you go in the depths of a discussion—making it
light, yet serious at the same time—you will see there is a change
in their thinking level. And this you will see has also resulted in a
change in their attitude level,”
For school athletes, the most common change was stopping the use
of abusive language; for the community athletes it was helping with
household chores

21. What changes did the wives, mothers or
daughters of the coaches and mentors
perceive as a result of the men’s
participation in the program?

22. The female relatives noted improvements in the
men’s gender-related attitudes and behaviors:
→Communication with family members
→Sharing of household responsibilities
→Views about women and girls
→Aggressive behavior
→Emotional and sexual intimacy

23.  The wife of a mentor described how his approach to sex and intimacy has
changed.
“…in the beginning when he was in the mood of having sex he never asked me about my
willingness…….but now its not like that, he thinks that if I am not in that mood its
all right.
…….I used to take pills for family planning but he stopped me. He said that, if I take
pills it may create problem but if he uses condom he will have no problem”.

24. Conclusion & Way Forward
 Sports is an effective platform to engage coaches and boys on
issues of gender and violence.
 Parivartan’s success raises several questions around opportunities
and challenges:
 How can these positive changes be sustained among the coaches/mentors
& athletes?
 How feasible is it to scale this initiative to a larger group?
 How can this effort be institutionalized at various levels?
 How can women & girls be more actively engaged?