As the alumni from different programmes poured in it was heartening to  see familiar faces from SMILE, TT, GX, CL….and old Pravahans. Some of the core group alumni who helped anchor the programme included I.P. Singh, Producer Gustakhi Maaf, NDTV; Bidhan, Director, Fund raising, Greenpeace; Gautam, a lawyer by profession and running the NGO Awaaz; Meghna Editor with Oxford University Press and also founder of the NGO Neev; Asif working with Eduterra, Gaffar , an entrepreneur and Mukesh has just completed his Post Graduation from IRM, Jodhpur.

Speed dating was a fun game that allowed people to know each other better. People shared their experiences, their journeys, as well  as success stories of some other  batch mates… what a rich canvas Pravah has created!

The alumni meeting saw the announcement of the launch of the Alumni Network by Bidhan, Meghna, IP and Gautam. These alumni have promised to design Youth Addas for Pravah and committed to facilitate them till the month of May. The Adda themes will range from film screening, to heritage walks…from puppet making to campaigning! By June 2012, the Alumni Network plan to develop the first draft proposal for a sustainable alumni network. They also decided that post the Youth Addas, the alumni would get together in the evenings and have some fun & learning time together….

The day concluded with a successful flash mob conducted at Dilli Haat on the song Socha hain….spreading the message of peace with all participants showing off the peace symbol wearing while dhotis/ skirts/ scarves/ stoles.

We look forward to this continued engagement with our alumni and more such meets every year!

The Burla Youth Resource Centre is located in the small town of Burla about 18 kms from the Patang office. It was conceptualized by the local youth to create a space for the young to come together as a group to discuss local development issues of the region. Primarily a tribal belt, the young people who are part of the YRC are mainly from lower socioeconomic strata, from scheduled caste and scheduled tribe categories, with little or no access to education. The YRC is open to all young people between the ages of 14 – 26 years on all the days of the week from 9.30 am in the morning to 11.30pm.

Being primarily a tribal belt, the literacy rate in the area is low, and so the YRC has become an ideal space for youth to connect, learn, and build their skills around this issue. The YRC is operated on community contributions and managed by young people, who have started a library and have been successful in acquiring more than 3000 books. More than 100 members from the surrounding colleges and schools have become the members of the library. The YRC also subscribes to newspapers and employment newsletters.

Apart from this, the YRC regularly organizes summer camps and regular activities, such as painting competitions, folk dance and song, and theatre classes. Social issues impacting the region are also discussed, for example, ecotourism or the farmers’ movement and unequal access to water from the Hirakud dam. A Right To Information clinic has also been started in the YRC to help people understand the Act so that they can use it to make the government more accountable.

CAFE MOHALLA, JAIPUR

The youth resource centre in PJI has taken the form of a cafe mohalla. The café mohalla is youth-led, in which young people meet every fortnight, exchange views on different issues, and enjoy each others company over a meal made by youth volunteers. Primarily urban in location, the young people who frequent the YRC are mostly from educated middle class backgrounds and are enrolled in local schools and colleges. However, young people from neighbouring villages who are studying in Jaipur invite their friends from the rural areas to the cafe meetings. Through this, there has been a lot of cross learning and exchanges between the urban and the rural youth through knowledge sharing, issue-based learning, and skill building exercises. This in turn has added greater diversity to the young people attending the YRC and has added lot of depth and meaning to the discussions. The youth from rural areas influenced by the discussions have also shown an interest and a commitment to start youth cafés in their own villages.

PJI has a small collection of books and films on social issues which are used by young people for conducting workshops or for building their own learning and reading skills. All the activities in the cafe–which includes film screenings, debates on social issues, talks by guest speakers and games with a social message–are conceptualized, designed and facilitated by the young volunteers. The café is housed in the Pravah Jaipur Initiative office, which is strategically located near Rajsathan University. The café meetings takes place twice a month, but the office space is accessible to young people throughout the week from 9.30 am to 5.30 pm.

The Pravah Jaipur Initiative is also outreaching to the marginalized groups through the community video unit (CVU). The youth from bastis are being trained to address the issues of their community through the medium of filmmaking. Since the CVU is housed in the PJI office, the CVU volunteers are accessing the YRC and are also encouraging their friends to do the same.

SAHER COMMUNITY CENTRE, MUMBAI

Socially conscious youth from Hindu and Muslim communities have come together to start the SAHER Community Centre in Jogeshwari in August of 2010. The centre is strategically located near two colleges, and therefore is accessible to both the the college-going youth and out-of-school youth from the community. This community centre is a youth-led space and located 100 metres from the SAHER office. It has a library with small collection of books and runs computer classes for young people. Young people can come and read books whenever they have time and also enjoy interacting with each other in the YRC.

Additionally, there are discussions around social issues, such as local governnace, which impact their community. The YRC is accessible on all days of the week and its open from 9.00 am in the morning till late evening and also offers skill courses on computers, painting and other topics. Every Sunday the community centre holds dicsussions on issues related to active citizenship. On average, a group of 30 young people from different social groups come to the resource centre to access information and use the library and in the process learn to appreciate diversity. Members from local youth groups use the internet facilities to source information on government programs and schemes. There are also lifeskills sessions for community youth and discussions on social issues. The community centre attracts people from both Hindu and Muslim communities and promotes interaction between these groups.

JEEBAN SANGHA, KOLKATA

Jeeban Sangha is a local youth club situated in lake gardens in South Kolkatta. There are around  350 families in the area,  mostly Hindus.  Most men are daily wage labourers and women work in neighbouring homes as domestic help.  This center is being led by a young fellow, Krishna, from Thoughtshop Foundation, our partner organisation. He is providing the leadership to the group, which meets regularly at the lakes, and has developed a vision for their group and their community. This has brought about lot of personal changes in the young people of the community and also in the process, has addressed key social issues. The group meets every weekend and holds workshops, film screenings, and street plays to spread awareness on the issues of gender inequality and domestic violence, RCH and HIV/AIDS, early marriage and  trafficking. Community members have begun to realize Jeeban Sangha’s role, and approach the centre for all kinds of support.

The word gender is a socially and culturally constructed term assigning distinctive roles, values, customs, practices and images to boys and girls, and men and women. The concept also includes certain characteristics, behaviour and aptitudes expected of both the sexes. Through the process of institutional evolution, men fought to establish themselves superior to their female counterpart. Male dominance led to continued deprivation, exploitation, discrimination against women, and of their marginalisation in economic, political, religious and cultural decision-making process. Not just women; children, youth, minority groups, physically and mentally challenged people fell prey to the sever stereo-typing and discrimination at the hands of patriarchy (the male domination).

The subordination that women experience daily, regardless of the class or race they might belong to, takes various forms- discrimination, disregard, insult, control, exploitation, oppression, violence- within the family, at work place, and in the society. This systemic violation of fundamental human rights is directed specifically towards girls and women, but also targeted towards non-stereotypical men and boys.

Despite dominant rhetoric about manhood, many men and boys suffer from socially constructed gender stereotypes. Such stereotypes put pressure on them to be tough, strong, ‘breadwinner’, resulting in hard conditions of labour. Homophobia and other forms of discrimination against men and boys because of their sexual orientation have emerged as forms of personal and institutional violence at the hands of other men. Moving towards gender equality would mean that both men and women will be able to share and be a part of a broader, healthier, safer and richer experience.

Men, especially youth, have realised that it is time that they engaged as partners in change in ending gender discrimination. Also important to note that the new framework of Gender and Development work clearly indicates that there is a need to work with both sexes to address the issues related to gender gaps and gender based violence. Men can de-align themselves from the perpetrator identity and re-look at themselves as “partners for change”. Men can not only stop being violators themselves but also be advocates for change, role models and sharers of responsibilities and spaces.

Youth is the present. They have the key to changes in the future. Youth engagement and participation in struggling out of peer pressure, social norms and available institutional power-holding, is essential in assuring gender-equality in the future. There is an urgent need to universally include boys and young men to promote and advocate gender equality and justice. The narrow path of traditional masculinities might provide young boys with a sense of entitlement to power, but it also chip away at the possibilities of building healthy and equitable relationships with women/girls/men/boys and traps them into a web of trauma and inadequacies. However, on the positive side, the fact that not all boys are socialized into being violent gives the hope for changing the present and the future. Most boys are socialized in ways that promote gender inequality and discrimination, but not all young men adopt these gendered patterns or act out these stereotyped roles. This experience could be the resource for building and strengthening intervention and partnerships with young people on gender based violence.

Ten young bravehearts embarked upon a brand new expedition with Pravah earlier this month. They are volunteers in the Global Xchange programme, a Pravah- VSO initiative. They left for Manchester for the first lap of the programme on November 19, 2011 to live, work, and learn in a rural community there. They will return to India again some 3 months later to do the same in a rural setting here.

The evening before they left was dedicated to some fun and storytelling with those who have already been on this programme before, and others who have been involved with Pravah in various capacities. Morale was high that evening, and the sentiment was one of nostalgia, and yet of a celebration of endless opportunities. There was anticipation, imbued somewhat with a sense of anxiety of what was to come, but optimistic and bristling with energy.

Ayaz Thazhvara, a 22 year old commerce graduate shared that he came to this journey with the hope of experiencing something new, something different form the typical mundane stuff in store for a small town youngster. He was jubilant that he got this opportunity with Pravah, and looked forward to an eventful six months.

Padmaja, eighteen, had just finished school and was raring to take on the world! She shared with remarkable self belief and openness that she is keen to learn about the world around her.

Utthara saw GX as an opportunity to reflect, to explore herself, and hopefully figure some things out about herself from her experiences. She wanted GX to give her an opportunity to ask questions, to come back ‘confused’, to be less than smug about oneself and one’s world. The process, she felt, was more important for her than the destination.

The GX alumni, who were there to see off the new batch that evening, shared their moments of joy and their epiphanies … they relived those formative experiences that gave them direction. Energising games and activities ensued, and soon it was rather late in the night, time to get a few hours of much needed sleep before our volunteers left the country. Goodbyes and hugs were exchanged, and the evening ended here, but the voyage had only just begun.

Since a large part of our work focuses on personal self of young people besides social action in the outer world, for years we have tried to offer young people enjoyable and enriching experiences of self awareness and in this endeavor we have been able to develop what we call- INWARD BOUND!

Inward Bound installation at KMC

Inward Bound is an interactive exhibition aimed at enabling young people to gain a better understanding of themselves. It consists of a mix of games, inventories and reflective exercises that students can experience on their own. The whole experience is physically located in a tent-like structure where young people come, explore and walk away with greater awareness of themselves!

We take inward Bound to different colleges where we meet a sea of youth who go through different psychometric tests as they go through the colorful tents and as a result develop a better understanding of their personality, leadership and interpersonal skills.

We have taken Inward Bound in colleges like Kirori Mal, Miranda House, IIT, Indraprastha, Dayal Singh, Zakir Hussain and others and people have loved it.

Dr. Nadira (Program Officer, NSS, Zakir Hussain College) says “The feedback given by students is truly encouraging. I am sure it will have a positive effect on their personalities.”

Students taking tests for understanding their personality type

Dr. Vandana (Program Officer, NSS, Kirori Mal Colleg) opines “I am glad that Pravah conducted Inward Bound in our college.  I am sure each of our students enjoyed the experience. “

Here is sharing a write up written by Aashima (NSS- coordinator) of Indraprastha College on Inward Bound in her college.

Inward Bound that was organized by NSS in IP College on 24^th September, 2011 saw a hoard of students eager to embark on the journey from Me to We. It was an interactive event which saw mass participation from the students as well as the faculty.  We started early in the day and the program stretched well into the afternoon.

The NSS Unit of IP College was present throughout the day with volunteers coming to help with the setup and to assist the Pravah team and making them feel at ease. The whole experience was one of its kind with attractive tents standing in the middle of the sports field pulling students towards it. In the first tent they were made aware of their personality types, why were who the were and what made them behave in the way they behave to a specific stimulus. The first tent gave way to the second in which leadership and learning skills of the students were analyzed. The ‘tower making’ game attracted a hoard of students which mixed fun with self awareness. Many among the students were interested in knowing or working further with Pravah. The team answered all their queries and created a database of students interested in working along with Pravah in its various programs.

The feedback from the students was ecstatic. The students felt immensely pleased with the experience and they came out with a better understanding of themselves. Aakriti, a student of 1^st year English honors said that she now knew which kind of people would she work well with and why. Sayantani of B.Com also thought that the program was highly beneficial in making her understand why she gelled well with a certain type of people and not others.

“ I have struggled to know why I cant work with my sister, I know now that we are two completely different personalities and we do not ideally gel well, now that I know this I will take care to avoid the things which create tension between us” – Divya Mehrotra.

All in all Pravah’s first program in IP college was a huge success and laid down the foundation for further collaborations. It was a joyous, fun filled day for everyone involved which ended in everyone leaving with a smile on their faces.

Changeloomer, Mohammed Saifu with patients at the Institute of Palliative Care, Calicut

On of the reasons I enjoy my work at Pravah is because I get the opportunity to meet and work with inspiring young people like Mohammed Saifu – a Change Looms participant.
As a student Saifu was an active member of his neighbourhood network in palliative care – a community owned project in Kerala. His experiences and interactions with the terminally ill inspired him to begin Students In Palliative Care (SIPC) in 2009. SIPC builds community ownership for palliative care interventions by mobilizing college students. Student volunteers provide home-based medical care to terminally and chronically ill patients, create opportunities for rehabilitation of patients and build a supportive community which enables patients to step out of their isolation and take on leadership roles. SIPC engages with almost 1300 student volunteers across 13 colleges in Calicut.

Pravah helps Changeloomers across India to strengthen their leadership skills and their social initiatives so that they can run them better. We do this through workshops, online mentoring and field visits. As part of the Change Looms process, I visited SIPC in September and attended a volunteer and patients get-together.

Student volunteers at an SIPC get-together

I was amazed at the number of enthusiastic young people who came from different colleges, who wanted to volunteer their time helping patients. We also did a workshop with student volunteers from 13 colleges on the art of giving feedback and teamwork. Thanks Saifu and the SIPC team for your hospitality and the opportunity to learn about community-based palliative care.
Kamini (Pravah)

Since this was my first foray into the Pravah world, I had no idea what to expect out of the few hours that I was to spend in the workshop. I went only with the promise of a fun-filled creative afternoon. What we got in return was a lot more than just that – a greater appreciation of creativity and theatre as a whole.

Ritesh Sharma, a theatre personality and a filmmaker from Delhi, defined creativity in such easy to grasp terms that it made me wonder about the completeness of it. However, as time passed, and the mutual interactions built up, and our inhibitions were slowly washed away, we realised that there can’t be a simpler and more accurate definition of all creative processes – an illusion to brings about a better understanding of our world, and of ourselves.

Through the many activities that we did throughout the workshop, we understood the many important aspects of theatre. We learnt Improvisation when we each had to come up with a gesture befitting our personalities, and along with the names that we knew ourselves, those gestures became a part of us too for the next few hours.

Although we didn’t go deep into acting as a process, we learnt how important our body is in the world of theatre. On stage, in the midst of putting the illusion into action, our body is the greatest instrument at our disposal. We learnt to master our body through our mind, to become smaller than the smallest insect, and larger than the biggest man alive. Through this exercise, we understood that by feeling the character, we can become as mighty and powerful or as small and fragile as the character we depict – mind over matter, illusion over reality.

In order for an illusion to work, it’s important for both the actors and the audience to believe it to be true. Unless the actors believe that the floor is made of fiery coal, the audience wouldn’t believe it either. For the audience to feel the cold sting of ice on naked feet, it’s important for them to see the expressions of the actors, feel their pain before they can feel it themselves. The actor should be able to break the barriers of the mind, covering the stage in front of him with fire or ice, petals or thorns, feel the pleasure of walking on grass, and wince with pain from stepping on a jagged stone. Slowly, surely, alternating between the actor and the audience, we came to understand the impact that a well portrayed expression can have in the illusion that plays out on stage.

Through improvisations and expressions, by sharing the common stage, we broke the barriers that often linger on between strangers who become friends in a short span of time. With strangers, we painted together, sharing our emotions over the piece of paper we shared, collaborating and creating ourselves as we knew us, only to find that at the end of it all, we knew ourselves so much better than before. The strangers from a few hours ago were no longer strangers, and shared a bond that will last long, a bond that holds strong. When the day was done, and the lights of that little shared space went out, our exploration of ourselves was complete, and we found the hidden creative side of us, once more.

In today’s world of growing violence, distrust and insecurity, the need for peace education is even more profound. However, the big question is, how can teachers build a culture of peace? Because peace education is not just about putting high ideals before the youth, it is about translating these ideas into a framework in a way that they are internalized by young people.
 
3 steps can help teachers grow as peace educators:
• Be alive to what is going on around.
• Understand peace.
• Help students understand peace and be empowered to deal with violence in peaceful ways.
 
To begin with, teachers need to be open to conflicts that are going on, and open these up in the classrooms for discussion and debate and build a greater understanding of it among students. This is because violence is something that children internalize, and they are encountering it everywhere. They are bringing real fears and anxieties in the classroom, and so real issues in society cannot be outside the purview of education. In this context, schools too need to respond to what’s happening around and empower teachers to open issues in society up in the classroom and make students make sense of it and more importantly, explore peaceful alternatives together.
 
But to be able to take up this responsibility, teachers themselves first need to build their knowledge and belief in peace and acknowledge that there is no alternative to ‘content’ when it comes to teaching peace. Teachers need to recognise that conflict is a part of life, and if one accepts diversity, one must accept difference. They need to strengthen their belief in peace, and equip themselves with the right methods to make the students understand that peace is not just a concept, but it can be practised in life. Apart from this, teachers need to develop skills to handle issues of violence, such as communalism or casteism, at a level of complexity. They need to believe that children can handle complexities, and gain the skills to explain complex issues in a simple manner, without ‘simplifying’ the issue. To be able to do this, teachers, need to understand the complexities themselves.
 
To help students understand peace in action and be empowered to deal with violence in peaceful ways, India’s own history can be used as a very significant example. India’s struggle for freedom, largely a nonviolent movement, was a time when people of India came together as one people, putting aside gender, caste, religious and regional differences. And this is a legacy that cannot be over-highlighted. Further, India survived extremely strong communal violence and then built a secular state. It also now has a 60 years long history of practicing democracy. Examples such as these from history can not only make practicing peace real and possible, but also instil confidence in children to overcome challenges they face in peaceful ways.
 
However, teachers should be conscious to not stop critiquing, but help young people understand that being critical is not equal to being ashamed of ourselves, and that it is important to focus on achievements. Young people need to understand that we have the strength as people and believe in it. They need to develop a belief in their own abilities besides developing a faith in nonviolent resolution of conflict – faith in negotiation, dialog, consensus building – and see that it is not just desirable, but is possible.
 
 All this will help young people grow up with confidence and with a belief in peace. Further, if they see conflicts not being diffused in classrooms, but being resolved through negotiation and discussion, they will learn to handle challenges in life and society in similar ways.
 
This is how teachers and schools can be nurseries of peace.

All of us have a singer in us, some are closet singers and others are centre stage singers. With this event at Pravah the closet singer within me wanted out and I was more than happy to oblige.

When I first reached the venue the crowd was thin and I was hesitant about the ‘success’ of the event due to such a small number of people who had turned up. Anchal spoke to us about our first memories of a ‘movement’ song, it was amusing to see that most of us didn’t know many and patriotic songs were more deeply etched in your memories.

Freedom related songs are usually intrinsically patriotic whereas a movement song has more linkages with an issue and the struggle group. A movement establishes its identity and its roots vis-à-vis a song. We realized that it is essential to draw visuals as we sing to make connections with the song and derive strength, there is a need to recognize the struggle.

Le mashale chal pade hai log mere gaun ke,
Ab andhera jeet lenge log mere gaun ke.

Puchti hai jhopdi aur puchte hai khet bhi,
Kab talak loot- te rahenge log mere gaun ke.

Cheekhti hai har rukawat thokado ki mar se,
Bediyan khanka rahe hai log mere gaun ke.

Lal suraj ab ugega desh ke har gaun me,
Ab ikkatha ho chale hai log mere gaun ke.

Dekh yaara jo subah lagti hai phiki aajkal,
Lal rang usme bharenge log mere gaun ke.

Le mashale chal pade hai log mere gaun ke,
Ab andhera jeet lenge log mere gaun ke.

This song has many versions and it is a very powerful song. It seems that it was written with the sole reason to awaken and arouse the workers from their slumber and fight for their rights. And once risen they will be unstoppable. The imagery of the red sun rising denotes as much.

“Hum dekhenge,
Hum dekhenge,
Lazim hain ki hum bhi dekhenge,
Hum dekhenge”

A beautiful piece of poetry by Faiz Ahmad Faiz that has been put to music and it says that we have that much of strength to rise up against violence and we will rise up. As the musical evening moved along, it seemed as if the showers outside joined us in unison, eager to add its own nuance into the evening.

The session helped sensitize us that we must not dichotomize movement music, instead understand the ideology and history of the movement. Revolutionary music is a part of our heritage of struggle and we must not only promote it through modern means of communication but also explain the underlying cultural context.

We ended our session with Sahir Ludhianavi’s “Who Subah Kabhi toh Aayegi” which has been put to music. We heard it and joined in the singing of the song and as we sang I felt a consciousness in me. A slow realization that all of us have to work to get a new morn as we await the new dawn and work towards it. I had a profound realization..that the numerical strength of the people is unimportant, it is the strength of the words, the strength of the struggle and strength of conviction in each voice that makes a difference.

After this we all felt no need to say anything more and we ended with “We shall overcome.” This is a song which has been sung in many languages and we tend to engage in it not only as listeners but relate to its very essence. The whole musical journey come full circle as many of us related the experience to the Music for Harmony event. I nearly shivered at the strength a song can hold, and as I looked around some of my friends had their eyes closed while some just swayed to the music but one common factor was the confidence in each one to be change makers.

Pravah Jaipur Initiative (Jaipur)- Altaf Bhat Chisto, a Kashmiri peace activist, speaking to PJI volunteers during a café meeting held on 7th of December 2011. His talk was followed by an intensive discussion on the issue. Below, Jaiveer Rathore, an active volunteer with Pravah Jaipur Initiative being is being interviewed by a reporter during Fly Peace Campaign. In his words- “Pravah has given me loads and loads of confidence every time. I also look at PJI as another home, where I can run to if I am suffering from any problems, any tensions or type of stress. I can come to Pravah and those stresses are relieved.”

Saher (Mumbai)- A session being facilitated on taking stances by Seher (A Mumbai based organization working with children and youth from slums). Below, Children, Youth and Community elders participate in Marathon for Peace

Commutiny- the Youth Collective (Delhi)- Core Group of the ‘Must Bol Campaign’ at the Reclaiming the Night Event organized in collaboration with Saathi – All for Partnerships in Delhi to demonstrate their opposition to crime against women in the city. Must Bol is a youth led campaign against gender Based Violence , facilitated by CYC. Below, Community Cookout at the Learning and Leadership Journey program’s orientation event as part of a group building and learning exercise.

Parth Laxami Vikas Trust (Gujrat)- Ankit  (in pink) , founder of Parth Laxami Vikas Trust facilitates a session on conflict positive model with his team of volunteers in Gujarat as Pravah representatives participate to support him and give feedback. Below, Ankit shares his thoughts  with the group as part of an exercise during foundation retreat of ‘Ocean in A Drop’- a learning voyage for youth facilitators initiated by Pravah (February 2011).  The retreat was a capacity building cum selection space for streaming program.

Pravah (Delhi)- The gang from the second batch of SMILE In-turn-ship (4-6 weeks Internship Program for young people) during their four day Orientation camp in Manthan (Rajasthan). Below, Volunteers share their food-memories during a summer hulchal named ‘food for thought’ that helped people in exploring some issues concerning food.. market influences on what we eat, food distribution, environmental impact of what we eat/ drink..