Alex Masi

Pravesh Verma, 29, from the charity MASVAW, is smiling inside his home in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India. Pravesh grew up in a middle class family living in a small village where women had to stay in the house and cover their faces when young or just married. He never helped with anything at home; sometimes he and his brother used to beat their sister when she left home to be with her local friends. He used to insult girls using foul language. He had a girlfriend, an adult relationship, but nobody was to know. When his father found out, they had to break up. He later moved to Lucknow in 2001 to study philosophy, and in summer 2007 he attended his first MASVAW-workshop on gender equality. He was impressed and continued to visit those kind of workshops in the coming years. Pravesh began to change; he started to cook and clean on his own, opened up a banking account for his sister where he could deposit some money for her, he even asked his father to change some of his property to his mother's name. He now has a girlfriend named Pinki, 29, and they both met each other's parents. He would like to marry her, but she is still thinking about it. She lives close to Delhi, and they can only meet twice a month. He resides in Lucknow with his sister and his old grandmother, around 100 years old.