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India is home to the largest adolescent population in the world, 254 million, with every 5th person aged between 10 to 19 years. Clearly, adolescents are the backbone of India’s future growth and economic development. Although these young men and women have the potential to transform India, they lack the basic resources and agency to do so. Even before the advent of the pandemic, adolescents faced a myriad of obstacles and restrictions caused by poor access to facilities such as sanitation, education, and healthcare. The pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns have only exasperated the issues, especially for adolescent girls, who are exposed to multiple layers of vulnerability due to deep-rooted socio-cultural norms.
The 10to19: Dasra Adolescents Collaborative (DAC), a multi-stakeholder platform, intends to transform the vulnerable period of adolescence by creating and accelerating an environment where adolescents feel safe, heard, and empowered to achieve their full potential. By investing in adolescents, especially girls, DAC aspires to create agents of multi-generational change and economic impact. DAC is committed to four goals for adolescents’ holistic well-being: completing secondary education, delaying the age of marriage and first pregnancy, and building agency and employability. By mobilizing private resources and public programs to drive more gender-equitable practices within existing Indian policies and amplifying adolescent voices and leadership, DAC continues to contribute toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. As part of our work on adolescents and young people, Dasra US drives US-based individual philanthropists, families, foundations, and corporates such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Packard Foundation to collaborate with non-profits, government, and other stakeholders, as ‘development risk capital’ providers, to scale up impact and catalyze their support. |