We borrow from the arts, to challenge social and moral constructions of gender and sexuality, to encourage participants to reflect on their own prejudices, stereotypes and perceptions. We believe in a bottom-up approach, to ensure that gender and sexuality do not become concepts to be learnt, instead deepens our understanding and engagement with the world around us.
Adolescents
We have conducted workshops with adolescent girls and survivors of violence in Madhya Pradesh, to narrate their own experiences of violence and discrimination. The intent was to go beyond the act of violence, to question and reflect on societal norms that create cultures of violence. We have also conducted workshops with adolescent boys to understand masculinity and norms that enable violence.
Community Radio Practitioners
We have been mentors to a network of community radio practitioners across the country, to produce programs that are gender sensitive. This has resulted in over 200 programs on gender and sexuality, across rural, peri-urban and urban India, on sexual violence, access to health, stereotypes and societal norms.
We facilitated a workshop with women community radio broadcasters in Nepal questioning the fixed notions of programming on women issues on the radio. The workshop was designed to push the imagination of women radio broadcasters to explore different shades of gender. Often the programming on community radio gets reduced to issues and possible solutions. The workshop was designed in a way to look beyond the issues and question the systemic problems and implications in everyday life. The radio broadcasters were encouraged to explore different notions of community and understand their own position with regards to it. As a culmination of the workshop, a network of women community radio broadcasters was imagined producing programmes on various moods and shades of gender across Nepal.
College Students
We have also worked with students across campuses in Bangalore, to record their experiences of sexual violence, in the wake of the metoo movement. We also regularly host workshops, lectures and courses for students on gender, and sexuality.