Prep Album!

The busiest stretch of any Prajnya 16 Days Campaign against Gender Violence is definitely right before the campaign, with 16-20 programme bags and banners to sort, corporate partnership materials and most important, Call for Help to distribute. And the team does this, while also preparing content and making some follow-up calls for the first few events.

This year, in the absence of interns and most of the old-time volunteers, a three-person core team made up of Nafeesa, the Campaign Coordinator; Sudaroli, the GRIT Programme Officer and Santha, our administrator, has worked insane schedules for four straight days.

I am blogging to share with you glimpses of the uber-organised craziness.

List-making is one of the main traits we seek in every Campaign Coordinator, and this one truly meets the bar! 

Getting various things printed, collecting them or organising delivery and then taking stock is a HUGE part of campaign preparation. It is also a hefty component of our campaign expenses.

This year, we have printed 20,000 copies of 'Call for Help.' This is a listing in Tamil and English of distress helplines and services available to women in Chennai. Every year, we call the numbers back, confirm services, check the contact information and prepare a new edition. We distribute this everywhere we go. 

But the large print order is not for that. It is because we have retail partners who distribute Call for Help every year through the campaign through their packaging divisions. Sundari Silks has been our longest-standing partner, but last year, Nalli joined in (the original Panagal Park store) and this year, we are proud to add RmKV Silks to our partner roster... really, Hall of Fame! Imagine the numbers of women who troop in and out of these stores between November 25 and December 10, and who go away with a listing in their shopping bags. This is reach we could never manage on our own.

Our only worry is about the capacity of service providers to cope with the potential demand. Keep them in mind when you make your next donation, won't you? 

 

The team went the whole hog and packed everything with itemised lists--how much MORE meticulous could one be?!