Like Rita, adolescents in poor areas in India are suddenly thrust into a world of adult responsibility. Elementary schools, even for the fortunate few who attend school, do not provide adolescents the skills or the knowledge to deal with the emotional and physical changes of growing up. Adolescents require concrete and correct information about reproductive health before they can be expected to be responsible adults.

"We have to be more responsive to the needs of adolescents," said Francois Farah, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Representative to India. "We need to provide them with services and answers to their many questions."

Till recently students were taught primarily about demographics and population control--abstractions rather than concrete information about their own bodies and their changing role in society. According to J.L. Pandey, the National Coordinator of the National Population Education Project (NPEP), cultural and social mores in India have made the implementation of universal sex and reproductive health education difficult.

This changed after the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. "We started to see population as an aspect of development rather than an obstacle to it," said Pandey. "It became important to teach adolescents about more than demographics."

The National Council of Educational Research and Training, which the NPEP is part of, has developed a new program to teach students about gender equity and sustainable development along with reproductive and sex education. The official title for reproductive health education is 'adolescence education' because, according to Pandey, it is culturally more acceptable and will hopefully help overcome some resistance among teachers and parents.

The focus of the program is not, however, simply on 'adolescence education.' Gender equity will be an important topic in the continuing effort to empower girls and women. Basic civic responsibilities and hygiene, always a part of the curriculum, will now be given more weight as well.

The new program is good news for adolescents in the formal education sector since they now have access to correct and comprehensive information about reproductive health. But there are still millions of children, many of whom live in economically depressed areas like slums, who are not attending schools.

Numerous nongovernmental organizations, funded both privately and by the government, are running programs to educate children and adolescents who have limited access to formal education. These children, who are either not Katha, an organization based in New Delhi, runs a school for children and adolescents who live in Govindpuri slum, home to over 150,000 people. The school, which has 1300 students, is situated in the middle of rows of makeshift houses and has a large garbage-dump just outside its main gate.

"We're giving children a way to take control of their own lives," said Geeta Dharmarajan, the founder of Katha. "They are learning about their own health and well being."

Students, besides learning conventional subjects such as math and science, are taught about reproductive health and gender issues. Some girls, who have dropped out of school, are part of the 'Balika Mandal,' a group that focuses on teaching them vocational skills such as baking and sewing.

"These girls used to not even think of being educated," said Dharmarajan. "They had no dreams, they didn't even see a future beyond marriage." Today these girls have knowledge about their bodies and about hygiene as well as the skills to earn an income for themselves.

The UNFPA, like other United Nations organizations and international funding organizations, provides the funding for some of these projects. While the field offices remain involved in the projects, they are actually executed by NGOs.

In the town of Thane, two hours outside Mumbai, a group of adolescent girls gathered to present street plays prepared over the past year. Gathered into a small room they giggled nervously at first, then entered their element when they began performing.

The girls, residents of one of Thane's many slums, all attend vocational training centers run by the Family Planning Association of India (FPAI) with funding from the UNFPA. The centers combine vocational skills training with information about reproductive health and hygiene issues. A key component of the program is to teach the girls about gender issues, specifically gender inequality.

"We have to give these adolescents the right kind of information," said Anuja Gulati, State Program Officer for the UNFPA. "Most of the information they get is from peers or the media which is usually completely incorrect. There are a lot of myths and misconceptions about reproductive health out there."

Some of the girls had no understanding about pregnancy and their own bodies, said Gulati. More worrying is the lack of knowledge about HIV/AIDS, which is spreading rapidly in India. Adolescents, especially girls, must be informed about protecting themselves from the disease if the spread of AIDS is to be stemmed.

"Adolescence is a time of great change - mentally, behaviourally, sexually and physiological," said Gulati. "The transition from childhood to adulthood is the right time to intervene and give them information which might impact their attitude."

Programs like Katha and the FPAI centers are aimed at changing the attitudes of adolescents through skills training and knowledge. By targeting girls the programs aim to both improve their standing in society as well as disseminate information about reproductive health through the community.

"Girls command a secondary status in Indian society," said Gulati. "But when the parents see that their daughters have learned skills and are earning a little money, their status immediately increases."

The girls will also be trained to be peer educators--street plays are just the beginning of a long process to educate the entire community.

"We plan to stay in touch with these girls even when they leave the centers," said Gulati. "We want them to act as peer educators and teach more people in the community."

The street play Rita's group performed was called "A New Awakening." It depicted instances of child marriage, parental abuse, and sexual harassment. The girls, who created the play themselves, give regular performances in the neighboring slums. Initially there was resistance to adolescent girls publicly highlighting such issue. Now, they say, they are getting requests to go and perform in places as far away as Bombay.

"The project has given me confidence," said Rita. "We didn't know a lot of things, now I'm not embarrassed by talking about them."

At the end of the play the girls came together and presented their message to the audience. "You have to make change. Open your mouth and say something to change the world."