My ‘why’ of grant writing| Shreya Nagendra
Born and brought up in a middle-class Indian family, I grew up with a conservative attitude towards sexual and reproductive health(SRH) topics. Even a natural phenomenon such as menstruation was discussed with a lot of reservation and caution among high-school girls and adult women in my social circle. I first learned about menstruation through my peers. And my first ‘sex educators’ were few high-school girls too. The little inaccurate, inadequate knowledge that a few had was disseminated amongst the girls in the class. I know it is not uncommon, but it was packed with misinformation. It was taboo to ask questions about anything related to sex or sexuality. Even genuine curiosity would result in an inquisitive adolescent being tagged as a ‘deviant’ by society.
I attended one of the top co-ed schools in Bangalore, a metropolitan city in India, so I consider myself privileged. However, we had 1 or maybe 2 one-hour sessions on sex education. There was no mention of birth control, safer sex practices, and absolutely no mention of sexual minorities. The situation was more adverse in rural areas and economically underdeveloped parts of the city. School-going girls drop out of schools on the onset of their menses, even today, as I’m writing this article. My experiences were trivial compared to this.
And as I grew older, I was resentful about the whole experience, the way I was introduced to all of these topics. Ideally, this should have purely been educational. The stigma was unshakable and deeply embedded in culture, tradition, and societal norms.
After moving to St. Louis, an American metropolitan city, I was surprised to learn that some of the same SRH problems persisted in the US. Through my graduate schooling, professional experiences at Generate Health (a local nonprofit), and Planned Parenthood, I quickly understood the SRH disparities across different demographic populations. But these collective experiences raised a lot of questions in my mind. Questions that eventually led me to pursue a research career focusing on SRH issues.
Why don’t schools have resources/funds to get adequate sex education? Why are some easily preventable and treatable STIs still prevalent? Why do sexual and gender minorities face implicit bias and unfair treatment from society at large? And I think that is where my ‘why’ for grant writing truly began and why I became an unapologetic advocate for SRH.
During my time at Planned Parenthood, the services provided there were always under attack. In Aug 2019, the organization left its federal Title X funding, which ensured birth control and other preventive care services for those who need it the most because of the gag rule. This keeps over 1.6 million Planned Parenthood patients from getting primary healthcare and scientifically accurate information. The struggle to keep the funding and apply for other grants during the whole debacle was real. So I’m profoundly aware of how important the skill of grant writing is to an SRH researcher like myself.
I have minimal grant writing experience. Our capstone class in the master’s program focused on grant writing. I worked on a grant application in a group of three. It did an excellent job introducing me to the skill. Still, it wasn’t as rigorous as the grant writing class taught by Dr. Juliet Iwelunmor. This class introduced me to the NIH-style of grant writing, which I’d never experienced until now. Each of us gets individual attention, and I can pursue a topic that makes it more meaningful for my research trajectory.
My approach with this class is to absorb as much information as possible and probably make as many mistakes. Because that’s the best way to learn! I’ve learned that there will be many failures before a glowing success/es with grant writing through this class. That mindset really enriches and humanizes my learning process, and I’m very grateful for that.
