| Posted: May 21 2010,04:48 |
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Postal address of organization/institution
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C- 24B, Second Floor, Kalkaji, New Delhi-110019
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E-mail address of organization/institution
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mail@pravah.org
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Website address of organization/institution
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www.pravah.org
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Telephone of organization/institution
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011-26440619/26213918
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PRIORITIES: All of the organization's domains of culture of peace activity |
EDUCATION FOR PEACE
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
HUMAN RIGHTS
WOMEN'S EQUALITY
DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION
UNDERSTANDING, TOLERANCE AND SOLIDARITY
FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION
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TOP PRIORITY: The organization's most important culture of peace activity |
EDUCATION FOR PEACE
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PARTNERSHIPS AND NETWORKS: What
partnerships and networks does your organization participate in, thus
strengthening the global movement for a culture of peace? |
At
Pravah our aim is to impact issues of social justice and further peace
through building youth leadership and citizenship action. Hence besides
working directly with youth, we partner with various organisations to
further the issue of youth active citizenship for building a peaceful
world. We partner with about 100 organisations annually through various
programmes. We use the approach of collaboration, partnerships and
incubations in diverse ways, to create an eco-system of organizations
that work on youth leadership and active citizenship for social change.
As part of this approach we focus on the following:
1. Startups
and Joint Ventures- Pravah Partners with like minded organisations and
individuals and facilitate the start up and /or development of new
youth initiatives and organisations. Two of our start ups are:
a.
Pravah Japiur Initiative- A couple of years ago, our exchange with
young people and organizations across the city of Jaipur had led us to
discover that while Rajasthan is known for its social activism across
the world, urban youth from this region tend to be disconnected from
their legacy. This concern led Pravah to incubate an initiative in
jaipur which is now known as the Pravah jaipur Initiative.
b.
Commutiny- The Youth Collective operates as a group of like minded
individuals who have come together with a common vision to strengthen
youth active citizenship and development in the country. CYC has
representation of senior members of over 8 youth organisations from
India.
2. Partnership Cell aims to strengthen citizenship action
and youth development and develops long term partnerships with
organisations working with young people across the country and
co-creates youth interventions that create opportunities for youth to
engage meaningfully in society. Currently we are partnering with Patang
in Orissa, Thoughtshop Foundation in Kolkata, and SAHER in Mumbai to
advocate for and faciliate youth development and active citizenship.
3.
Strategic Resource Group (SRG)- In collaboration with Youth and Civil
Society (YACS) Initiative of Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT), we have
launched the SRG which is an initiative to support organizations in
India to strengthen focus on youth development and particiaption in
their programs.
4. Pravah is on the Board as well as the
Executive Committee of the network of organisations led by the National
Youth Foundation. The network is a national platform for Indian youth
and youth organisations where they can associate with each other and
contribute in the building of our society through mutual interaction,
cooperation and group action.
5. As part of the teacher
training program we have established the Teachers Resource Center (TRC)
and Educators Collective (EC). The TRC build in teachers an approach to
understanding citizenship issues and supports them to embed citizenship
curricula within the school system. Our first centre has been set up in
partnership with Bluebells School International, New Delhi. The
Educators Collective brings teachers and educators together to promote
an exchange and dialogue on active citizenship issues. The membership
based collective also offers learning opportunities for teachers who
are helping young people engage with society meaningfully and
non-violently.
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ACTIONS: What activities have
been undertaken by your organization to promote a culture of peace and
nonviolence during the ten years of the Decade? If you already made a
report in 2005, your information from 2005 will be included in the 2010
report.
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We
work with partners ranging from young people themselves to teachers to
other organisations which are working to build a culture of peace
through youth participation. Our aim is to build a world where young
people can take leadership, address real community needs as well as
evolve as active participants in a peaceful society. While our
intervention takes different forms based on the audience, there are
three phases that mark it (described below).
Our work stems
from the belief that the learning process – whether of structured or
unstructured nature - needs to help participants understand that all
things in life are interconnected. That as parts of a larger whole,
their action can bring change – within themselves and in the spaces
they inhabit... their families, their neighbourhoods, the larger
society. The learning process needs to inspire them to be responsible
and active. This is the kind of learning we propagate to build the
culture of peace.
The three key pillars of our intervention are:
1.
Self to Society- Facililating a first inward journey is the first step
of our engagement - to support participants to understand their selves
in relation to the world around them. They learn to appreciate their
roles in life and their relations with those around. Learning to be
comfortable as a part of larger groups and gaining critical skills of
assertiveness, listening, cooperation and celebrating relationships are
at the core of this experience. The extension into responsible
citizenship then is a natural process. Rights and responsibilities as a
means of self-empowerment are understood in a collective context.
Learning to understand oneself – one’s values, stances and goals are an
integral part of this phase.
2. The Conflict Positive Process-
At the bottom of any problem, social or personal, lies a conflict.
Taking leadership in dealing with conflicts positively is therefore at
the very heart of change. In the second phase of our structured
interventions, participants are supported to become conscious of
conflicts in their lives and society and hone their skills to resolve
conflicts positively. This entails actively breaking down unhealthy
notions of ‘the accepted’, taking responsibility of situations, opting
for win-win solutions. Breaking stereotypes, appreciating diversity,
taking ownership and practising tolerance are embedded in the learnings.
3.
Citizenship and Voluntary action- Developing an understanding of
citizenship issues is the focus of this phase. Participants are
acquainted with social issues and are supported to take positive action
through social initiatives and campaigns. Some of the issues
participants engage with are diversity, right to shelter, peace,
gender, democracy, equality, poverty and sustainable development.
We
implement a range of programmes, and given below are some examples
representative of our activities with diverse stakeholders:
1.
SMILE(Students Mobilisation Initiative for Learning through
Exposure)creates opportunities for college students to understand and
appreciate diversity through exposure and facilitates them to engage
with society in meaningful ways. The program process focuses on
exposing participants to various diversities and building their
understanding around it.
a. The rural internships form a
part of this. Before the students are placed in various organisations,
they undergo an orientation camp, during which one of the
sessions is on conflict resolution.
b. Recently we designed a
module around Communalism and Identity in an effort to promote
education as a culture of peace. Part of the modules were film
screenings on the issue and also theatre workshops.
c. Every
year SMILE organises a music festival- Music For Harmony- that spans
over a day and promotes a culture of peace and harmony through music.
The event is organised by young volunteers and it helps them strengthen
their belief in peace and learn values of teamwork and cooperation.
d.
We also held a series of films workshops titled Films With Wings, (FWW)
that aims to promote and celebrate a cross cultural exchange of ideas
and creative expressions among young people across India and Pakistan
through the medium of films.
e. Through our Youth for
Development and Global Xchange programs, we create opportunities for
young people to explore different communities and issues, thus building
an attitude of respect and understanding.
2. We hold life
skills workshops for adoloscents in school through the “From Me to We”
program. The program builds life skills and equips adoloscents to
become active citizens. The FUN Camps build an understanding and
appreciationof social issues among adoloscents from urban and rural
backgrounds.
3. The Teacher Training program- The World Is My
Classroom- facilitates school teachers to design and implement life
skills and active citizenship curricula within the existing educational
framework and link the process of education with social realities. As
we expand this programme we are looking at building a culture of
peace within the schools we are workign with. Recently we organised a
consultation on Schools as Nurseries of Peace which acted as a forum
for educators to share their ideas and build support for the discourse
on education for peace. The consultation also explored different
methodologies and initiatives that are promoting non threatening spaces
within schools.
4. An integral part of our work is to support
young people to take up leadership in the society and be the change
they wish to see in the world. Through our Change Looms programme, we
support them to clarify their values and stances, adopt win-win
solutions as well as develop their organisations on principles of
equality, peace and justice.
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PROGRESS: Has your organization
seen progress toward a culture of peace and nonviolence in your domain
of action and in your constituency during the second half of the
Decade? |
Over
the last decade we have experienced some progress in our efforts
towards a culture of peace and non violence. We have expanded our
outreach in terms of the geographical spread of our programs through
various partnerships with other organisations. Each program too has
expanded the scope of its work over the years. Through our programs we
have built a network of youth facilitators who have experienced a self
transformation and now are assisting other youth to do the same.
Through our partnership cell, we have worked with a number of
organisations that work on youth development and active citizenship. We
have also succeeded in promoting multiple platforms where young people
and other stakeholders have been able to come together to discuss
issues of youth participation for building a better world.
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OBSTACLES: Has your organization faced any obstacles to implementing the culture of peace and nonviolence? If so, what were they?
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*
The single minded focus of schools is on doing better in academics. Due
to this lack of exposure to everyday situations, the educational system
doesn’t encourage students to think and debate about violence happening
in places around them. However, of late we have observed a shift in the
school’s from academics to an all encompassing education
*
Also with the schools that Pravah is currently engaged with, it has
been observed that parents would like their children to be involved
with social work only if they get some recognition while doing it. An
article in the newspaper and public recognition is considered an
indicator of the success of a particular programme. This undermines the
actual indicator, which is a transformation in the adolescent itself.
*
Although there are number of initiatives being taken by the youth
towards social action, it is still not perceived as an approachable
space for young people to be involved in. Stereotypes and biases from
the older generation as well as young peoples’ preoccupations with
academics and other factors, lead to a lack of spaces for youth to get
involved and take “action” in the social sphere.
* There is also
an increasing polarisation in society where differences between groups
on basis of caste, religion, economic status are only increasing over
time. As long as these extremities are there in society, conflict will
continue to exist.
* In implementing the curriculum for
Education for Peace in schools, it has been seen that there is a large
gap between the National Curriculum Framework and the teachers’
capacity. The curriculum which exists for education for peace has good
material but it does not challenge the teachers’ perceptions and
notions of peace and of themselves.
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PLANS: What new engagements are
planned by your organization in the short, medium and long term to
promote a culture of peace and nonviolence? |
Since
1993, we have been on a conscious journey to enhance the scope of our
work of supporting the building of a peaceful world through
facilitating young people to engage with society as active citizens.
While we started with students in schools and colleges, now our focus
encompasses a range of partners including teachers, professionals,
NGO’s etc. In the coming years we look forward to expand our outreach
and scope.
Some of the key plans for the coming years are:
•
There is an ongoing effort in Pravah to create a “fifth space” which is
an alternative dynamic space that will allow mainstreaming of youth
engaged in social action, thereby enabling their own identity formation
as strong citizens and better human beings.
• Since the inception of
Pravah in 1993, we have engaged with capcaity building of
individuals and organisations working in the youth active citizenship
field. Against this backdrop we have set up the Pravah Learning
Voyages, an institute which will focus on developing and sharing skills
and knowledge in critical areas of youth development work with diverse
stakeholders, and in the process enhance the journeys of youth towards
active citizenship more effectively.
• The underlying theme of the
FMTW interventions is taking stances based on values and conflict
resolution. One of the new projects started is with Sanskriti School
where students of Class 9-11 are taken to urban ethnic communities and
they try to identify certain developmental issues related to the
community. This will help in building their ability to recognise
community related developmental issues.
• We are also looking at
collaboration with NSS, Delhi University, where we will look at how
Pravah can collaborate with them to make NSS a more vibrant and
energising space for the youth participation.
• We will also be looking at creating new partnerships and looking at diverse organisations that we can associate with.
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GLOBAL MOVEMENT: How do you think the culture of peace and nonviolence could be strengthened and supported at the world level??
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