With all the wisdom...

I am one month and 6 days old at Prajnya today. And I am two days late with this blog post. This post was supposed to go out before our calendar release and I was supposed to drop hints about it, but anyways...

I want to say it is not an easy feat to learn an organisation’s ethics and values and 10 year’s worth of work and plan a 16-day events calendar all in one month. But this daunting task was made considerably easier by the eight campaign coordinators who came before me and of course, Swarna ma’am herself. I wouldn’t have been able to put together a calendar ‘that works’ in 30 days if not for the documents in blogs and websites and Google drives and the experiences that live in Swarna ma’am’s memory. Depending on this resource at hand, made the campaign planning easier and made me feel less like being lost in the sea. It also makes me feel like I have been here for longer than a month and a few days.

I have come to realise that putting together a campaign for the 9th year might feel like a routine for many who have been associated with Prajnya for long. But this feeling of routine has instilled a sense of confidence in our planning which reflects in the way we have planned this year’s calendar, we know now what works and what doesn't, we know our target audience and the best formats to reach them.

I feel like this calendar has been put together with all the wisdom Prajnya has gained from the past campaigns. I, for one, have embraced this wisdom.

I can not end this post without adding a few lines about this year calendar’s objective. While we have tried to address the newer developments in gender discourse we have also tried to question ourselves if we are done talking about the gender violence issues of the past, Sadly, the answer remains no. So with some old formats and new formats, we have tried to address the issues of the present and of the past. The common theme that emerges from this year’s planned events is the same as every year: reach as many people as possible and initiate as many conversations as possible about gender violence. Because we are not done talking.

So, without further ado, I invite you to check out the 2018 Prajnya 16 days Campaign against Gender Violence calendar. 

- Nafeesa

Year Nine... really?!

This is a very late opening for the Campaign blog. Perhaps that is indicative of too many words spent over the years, too few left unwritten now? Perhaps what felt like a huge family wedding nine years ago, with all the attendant strain, now just feels routine--strenuous, but routine? But the zest and ceremony that went along with the opening of the blog now just feels like a task on a checklist.

Anyway, here we are, miraculously at the ninth year of the Prajnya 16 Days Campaign against Gender Violence. We did not think this far when we started, I can say confidently.

But here we are, and once more, it is my privilege to introduce to you the very bright and enthusiastic Campaign Coordinator--Nafeesa Usman. Young as she is, Nafeesa comes to us with an enviable resume packed with very different kinds of social sector experience. She came in only in mid-October but in just about four weeks has put a full Campaign Calendar together. If you spoke with her now, you would not realise she has not been here for ten years; her study of previous reports and documentation has been that thorough and her immersion in the work wonderful. (This vindicates our insistence on documenting all sorts of things and makes me very happy!)

Some things are far easier now. Over eight campaigns and eleven years in all, Prajnya has some name recognition in this town and that helps in putting programmes together. Some things have never gotten easier, and if anything, are now harder--rallying volunteers and raising funds. Our older volunteers have more or less moved on or away and while some donors continue to support us, the smaller donations that filled out campaign coffers appear to have gone.

And many new questions have arisen, including the changing context of the gender violence awareness work we do. Is it changing? Is it the same? What remains to be done? How best should we do it?

The campaign planning process embraces all of this, as do our plans for this year. Jaded I may sound, but we have put the calendar together with all our usual enthusiasm and excitement. We cannot wait to share it with you.

We hope you will be a part of the 2018 Campaign as well--in person or virtually!

Remember, we're here. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn! It's very, very easy to connect with us, so please do! 

Welcome to the 2017 Campaign!

It feels like one of those winter mornings, when you know it's day but the sky is so heavy with clouds and snow that it feels like night, and you end up staying in bed longer than you intended, longer than you ought.

And so it is that we are opening the Campaign Chronicle only on the 20th of October this year. Much later than usual, but amid the same old, same old combination of excitement and anxiety that we always feel as the Campaign Calendar bubbles and boils its way to something like 'done.'

This year's Campaign Associate is Malavika Ravi. She is putting together a calendar that looks a little bit like the campaigns of the first and second cycle, re-cast with the confidence of the third.

Prajnya has also celebrated our tenth birthday in September (that is why the late start on the campaign) and we bring into the 2017 campaign, the celebratory mood, the renewed connections and a new energy.

I hope you are following us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prajnya16dayscampaign/
That is where we now post news, research and commentary. This is where we document our work and post content that complements or belongs to the Campaign Calendar.

Do stay in touch and join us wherever you can!