cbpar272

PUKAR, in partnerships with University of Chicago Law School, UOC Delhi Centre, and Khalsa College hosted a seminar on the daily lives, challenges and resilience of residents of Informal Settlements. This was held at Khalsa College premises and attended by an enthusiastic audience of activists, faculty, academicians, students and advocates of all colours and hues.

Starting with complex and multi-layered issue of Housing Rights, and issue connected with every aspect of housing, the thematic also included Improving Informal settlements, Access to Basic Services and Women’s Rights and Health in Informal settlements.

Having travelled from far off places like Chicago, Lucknow, Odisha, Hyderabad, Pune, joining local practitioners, the panellist of every thematic laid out the current situations, shared their own work experiences and provoked many debates on the floor. In a collective fashion and in collaborative spirit, the panellist suggested ways to move forward to make the life of residents for informal settlements a little better through policies, politics and practices.

These residents who essentially hold the city on their able shoulders and make life easier for other citizens are almost always treated by the larger society, the policy makers and the legal entities as “Illegal, Unwanted”. Through the discussions that ensued, the panellists and moderators informed, educated and enlightened the audience of the realities of lives in the informal settlements and inspired the audience to change their lens to view these realities. The spirited discussions that followed every session were the hallmark of the success of the seminar.  PUKAR wishes to thank all the partners and the participants for their contribution to this event.

‘Climate Change is real’ they say. But is it really true? In the past, there had been innumerable reports requesting everyone to act responsibly in order to save our planet from devastation and man-made calamities, but is our home planet, our Earth, really in danger?

In order to answer this crucial question and to discuss it in detail, PUKAR invited Anand Pendharkar from SPROUTS Environment Trust to conduct an interactive session on ‘Environment’ with our young researchers. It was an honor to have him and his active team with us who conducted an engaging and enriching session on the current environmental issues. Through their fun activities and many documentary clippings including few short films, Barefoot Researchers were made aware of global warming, deforestation, excessive use of plastic and all its impact on our planet Earth. Through reflective discussions, Barefoot Researchers were asked to share and discuss innovative methods by using recycled and eco-friendly products. At the end of the day, our young researchers presented their ideas with everyone through role-plays.

“I always used to feel that our environment is vast and therefore doesn’t need our help in saving her. But after this session, I want to do my part and help our planet to survive,” said Suraj, “It is because of our man-made pollution which has created an enormous negative impact on the environment. So today I pledge that I will celebrate my festivals with eco-friendly products and will minimize my waste”

We at PUKAR really appreciate such initiative and encourage more people to stand up and act towards preserving our home, our planet, our Earth.

There is a huge gap between knowing the existence of social realities and understanding the impact each of the social realities creates in our very own lives. The 10-day rigorous participatory learning opened up all the curtains and bought many social issues on the forefront for the students of GN Khalsa College. Through PUKAR’s short term course – ‘Karke Sikho’, students underwent a journey where they learned crucial concepts of self and participatory group work.

Our in-house facilitators, Neelima Swati Ambekar and Arvind Sakat , conducted an engaging session where students practiced ‘participatory leadership’ and learned to work with diverse teams while creating an enabling environment. In order to make students understand the minute details of social intersections like caste, class, gender, and disability; Dr. Rama Shyam, Ashish Shigwan and Sunil Gangavane conducted an activity-based session on Social Reality. To further enhance student’s critical lens, Dr. Anita Patil-Deshmukh conducted an interactive session on ‘Community-Based Participatory Action and Research (CBPAR)’. During her session, she gave immense importance to ‘Research Ethics’ and made students understand them through interesting case studies.

With various methodology which exists for community research, Dr. Aloke Thakore led the session specifically on Research Methodology and helped students practice different data collection methods. By the end of their journey, students were able to create their research proposal under the facilitation of Sunil Gagavane.

The intense knowledge-filled journey which students of GN Khalsa College experienced during their Diwali vacation was only possible because of our Resource Persons who gave their valuable time. Team PUKAR is happy to have them with us and want to show our gratitude by thanking each of them from the core of our hearts.

PUKAR’s POSH Committee has been active since the year 2016 and has been regularly taking meetings with all its colleagues, revisiting the laws and rules to prevent sexual harassment at the workplace. Taking a step further today, Shrutika – a member of PUKAR’s POSH Committee conducted a session about it with our barefoot researchers making them aware about the same. The interactive session with quizzes and various case studies made barefoot researchers understand its importance and made them aware of its process.

Team PUKAR was absolutely thrilled to read the elating news about Professor Abhijit Banerjee receiving Nobel Prize for economics. Professor Banerjee, the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at MIT won this coveted honour for his pioneering work along with Professor Esther Duflo and Professor Michael Kremer for their pioneering work in establishing Randomizing Control Trials (RCT) as an effective instrument for social science research. They have applied this instrument with precision while studying a wide range of issues that are responsible for global poverty including health, education, agriculture, and gender. They have successfully developed programs based upon their research to address the issues of poverty alleviation.

PUKAR had another very special reason for the elation. PUKAR has worked diligently in the area of Community Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR) in various formats since 2005. After hearing this work from PUKAR’s Executive Director Dr. Anita Patil-Deshmukh, Professor Banerjee readily agreed to deliver PUKAR’s Carol Breckenridge Memorial Lecture in the year 2013. At that lecture, he discussed the use of RCTs in education and ASER reports. It was a moment of pride for us then and today he has made us all stand tall!

Our heartiest Congratulations to Professor Banerjee.

The concept of identity – “Pehchaan” – holds a central place in the empowering our Barefoot Researchers to become conscious, contributing citizens. An understanding of our self through the multitude of socio-cultural factors that shape our identity and how it impacts participatory research is critical. However, defining identity itself is a complex process.

PUKAR had a great honour to host, the celebrated actress, script writer, film director, activist and one of the PUKAR’s trustees, Ms. Nandita Das, to address the question of individual and collective identity.

During a two-hour open discussion, Ms. Das shared and tackled the complex process of building identities with young researchers. Starting with her powerful signature campaign “India Got Colour” that deals with identity by colours, Ms. Das manoeuvred through religion, caste, class, gender, to regional and political ideology. Dwelling upon the severe inequality created due to caste and class, lack of opportunities, she emphasized on the fact that one builds one’s their own identity in relation with others. Together, Nandita and the Barefoot Researchers questioned the existing conflicts around identities in India, addressing the issues of growing inequalities. The most important fact that she reiterated upon was that our identity should primarily be built by our ideology, our thoughts and our actions; everything else taking secondary role.

“Since our second residential workshop I have been thinking about different identities which each one of us identifies with, but today Nanditaji, not only explained the formation of our identity based on the social structures but also taught us to defend it through non-violent means,” said Kulsum, a Barefoot Researcher.

“Through the conversation today I also learned to be confident about me and my choices while also respecting other’s preferences and being mindful before judging people based on media stereotypes.”

Team PUKAR is thankful to Nandita Das for giving her precious time and for sharing her wisdom and knowledge with us. Here is a little sneak peek of our day.

Picture Credit: Salman Khan

From the lens of a French intern at PUKAR

PUKAR’s “Journey Toward Dignity” (JTD) project is an education programme launched in 2015 which aims at empowering adolescent girls from marginalized communities by breaking myths and taboos surrounding sexuality and gender-related issues. It provides a very comprehensive course, comprising 22 sessions which cover critical topics from pubertal changes to nutrition, menstrual health and hygiene, and gender violence. Through this programme, adolescent girls acquire crucial knowledge about their body and sexuality, thus gaining self-confidence and making informed choices about their body.

OSCAR (Organization for Social Change, Awareness and Responsibility) Foundation is a Mumbai-based NGO which aims at empowering children from low-income communities through football. Their Young Leaders programme provides an opportunity for selected participants to receive a leadership training in development and football skills in order to become football trainers and role models for younger children, and thus agents of social change. Gender equality lying at the heart of OSCAR’s principles, more than half of their Young Leaders being girls.

OSCAR Foundation decided to reach out to PUKAR’s JTD team in order to provide a quality and extensive training to their Young Girl Leaders on growth and development, pubertal changes, nutrition, menstrual health and hygiene and gender violence. This new partnership aims at equipping the adolescent girls with the fundamental knowledge and skills to better tackle gender-related issues with the younger girls and their communities, in order to have a meaningful impact to empower girls and reduce gender inequality.

On August 31, 2019, Tejal – JTD senior programme officer – and Sheeba – project facilitator – went to OSCAR Foundation’s office in the neighbourhood of Fort to conduct the second training session of the six-month programme, focusing on pubertal changes. As a newly arrived intern at PUKAR, I accompanied Tejal and Sheeba as I wanted to experience on the field how the JTD Team delivers its successful programme. Throughout the day, the enthusiastic and curious adolescent girls took active part in workshops and discussions on the complex physical and emotional changes occurring during puberty for both girls and boys. Thanks to the JTD team, the girls felt comfortable voicing their difficulties, concerns and doubts on issues considered taboo. This training also helped thwart misconceptions about puberty, often influenced by gender stereotypes, such as: “girls become more sensitive and boys become more aggressive during puberty”. By the end of the day, the adolescent girls could understand the physical and emotional changes occurring during puberty and thus felt more confident to spread knowledge and awareness among younger girls and their communities .

Victoire Ambeza, intern at PUKAR and

Master student in International Development at Sciences Po Paris (PSIA)

Arjun Appadurai’s essay ‘Right to Research’, believes that everyone has a right to research regardless of their backgrounds (as a diverse group of researchers brings many perspectives to the study). Keeping this belief in our heart PUKAR has been working on breaking barriers between academic and barefoot – grassroot level researchers.

Last week we invited the ex-fellows of PUKAR Youth Fellowship to present their work to the students of the psychology department from University of Mumbai, in order to give them a glimpse into the research done by PUKAR’s trained barefoot researchers. Our young researchers talked about their journey from choosing their topics as a group to the challenges they faced along with the outcomes. Post the presentations, there was an intense question-answers session through which both, the ex-Fellows and psychology students interacted and learned new things. It was an enriching experience for all of us to witness. We were also honored to receive the precious plant and the handmade ‘Thank You’ card. The day ended with all the people sharing love and respect for each person in the room.