I love the idea of this book. I love the topic and stories. But the way it's organized feels a bit choppy and uninspiring. It seems like a great starting point or rough draft for a longer, more fluid story.

A fantastic and inspiring collection of stories. This is a great read for kids on others experiences, lives, and positive impacts

This is a beautiful collection of stories, each one focusing on a different adolescent girl in Uttar Pradesh, India. These girls are subject to subordination and extreme limitations on what they can do and where they can go due to the impacts of gender discrimination. The organization PANI has created centers for young girls across UP to help empower and educate them, and also to serve as advocates and help them communicate their dreams and desires to their families. In Splash!, we meet twenty-five of these girls, get to know them, their strengths, talents, hopes, and fears, and the way they applied the skills they learned with the advocates at PANI centers to step up and seize opportunities and expand their futures. These girls excel in sports, music, science, and beyond, and show us what it means to challenge the status quo and take control of our own destinies.

I loved the format of Splash! I learned a lot though the Collection of stories and interviews of women in rural India. It’s a change of pace from my usual and was a quick, easy and insightful read!

Splash tells about the lives of young girls in a part of India who weren't able to voice out due to their traditional cultures but through the means of PANI resource center being established in their community, encouraged them to voice out, face their fears and become whatever they want to become and also helped them financially to achieve their goals of becoming great in life.
As women, we can do and become all that our heart desires. We shouldn't be limited by our cultural traditions.
A nice read👍

Good reading to understand and learn about the life of these young women in India and to learn from their strength and courage. It is important that these true stories gain greater importance and can be known by everyone.

Book Review: Splash 💦

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I love @netgalley because I am able to come across titles I may not have known off before. One night I came across Splash, which was a collection of stories outlining the narratives of young women who belong to a diverse religious, cultural, caste background. In each of the stories, we learn of young girls who pursue careers that are often male-dominated professions. Each story is inspiring and celebrates the lives of adolescent girls in this region.

By doing so, each story speaks about the interaction that each girl and her family has had with the organization - The People’s Action for National Integration (also known as PANI), which also means water in Hindi. The organization has a vision to create inclusive societies and has worked to empower over 22,000 girls in over eight years to break away from rigidly defined gender roles that often hinder and women and girl’s dreams, and access to education and economic opportunities.

Although initially I was a little hesitant to read this as I wasn’t sure what the book will entail and might focus more on the organization then the lives of girls. However, each story is memorable and breaks the stereotypes of women who live in rural India. Rather, the premise of the book is that the stories of these women show that not all women in India are oppressed or painted by a broad stoke as it is often within the Western media. While such an endeavor does not take away from the issues of gender politics that remain imminent within India (the female wrestler’s movement, as an example) but we need to highlight such initiatives nevertheless to show the complexities and nuances that exist within a country.

Thank you @greenleafbookgr and @netgalley for the gifted arc.

#SplashBook #Netgalley #Splash #shnidhi #RekhaSaleelaNair

Empowering young women to stand up for themselves, especially when raised in a powerful patriarchal society is incredibly important.

Each of tje stories told in this book bring a glimmer of hope into the life of the author, And, I think, into the life of the reader as well.

In many ways, these are age-old stories: strong girls who are given the strength to stand. And yet, the fact that the world still needs to hear them is the most important reason to tell them.

Keep telling our stories.

"There is a saying that dogs will bark but the elephant keeps walking on. That is how we were." (140)

Splash! is an insightful collection of stories from interviews of women throughout rural India who have connected and benefited from a network of non-profit organizations who seek to provide women with opportunities. I learned so much about how women live in India and the daily struggles they face, such as inappropriate actions from boys in the villages, lack of educational opportunities, familial expectations, looming forced marriages, and extreme poverty. The PANI organization is offering many opportunities for women to gain skills and independence. It’s an inspiring book and a joy to read the stories from actual women who have benefitted.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. It’s a quick and easy read with interesting content for anyone.

I really enjoyed reading the stories of these young women, but I wish there was more emphasis on them rather than the neighborhoods. I know the societies in which they live have a profound impact on who the girls are, but I wish the emphasis was on their new journeys more. Overall, I would recommend though.

This is such an eye opening, thought provoking and wonderful read that is full of courage and remarkable women and girls. I cannot recommend this enough