OBR short film launch - tomorrow!

EKTA will be releasing our One Billion Rising short film (made by students of MKU) tomorrow! We are very excited to share this video with everyone, so try and make it if you can! The event will be held tomorrow evening (31.01.2013) from 4-6pm at the YMCA Hall Madurai. Below is the official programme with detail events. 

Safe Madurai & the Southern Regional Consultation on DCSR

It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks at EKTA. After Pongal, we hosted Rejita from Sakhi, Kerala. Drawing on her experience conducting the Safe City study in Kerala, Rejita led a training session on planning, implementing, and evaluating the results for a similar study in Madurai. After a day of discussing the technical aspects of safety audits, formal and informal surveys, choosing target areas, etc., we headed to Periyar Bus Stand (the main stand in downtown Madurai) to conduct our first safety audit. Observing physical attributes and eliciting the experiences of women users of the public space, we developed a detailed, multifaceted map of Periyar's safety deficits. This map, along with similar ones drawn up by college students at other strategic locations around the city, will be used to develop specific recommendations to improve women's safety and sense of well-being in public spaces in Madurai. As mentioned previously, EKTA will release an action plan on February 14th at our One Billion Rising event, and intends to use this initial study as the base from which to launch a more comphrensive, city-wide study to assess safety of public spaces for women. 

Asking a young woman about her experiences with violence at Periyar Bus Stand

While some EKTA team members conducted further safety audits with female college students in Madurai this past week, other members drove to Chennai to facilitate and participate in the Southern Regional Consultation on the declining child sex ratio (DCSR) in India. Organized by EKTA, with support of the National Foundation for India and the United Nations Population Fund, the consultation brought together NGO representatives from 6 states (and a Union Territory) -- Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Pondicherry, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha. Over 3 days, participants discussed statistics, indicators, and historical trends related to DCSR, identified root causes such as son preference, dowry, and safety and security concerns, shared successful and ineffective strategies to combat sex-selective abortions and female infanticide, and analyzed the language and implementation of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act and the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex selection) Act, among other things. Participants also made plans to continue this information-sharing process in the future to build a more wide-reaching and effective effort to address DCSR. A more detailed report on the specifics of the consultation will be available shortly on the EKTA website. 

Both the Safe Cities training and the DCSR demonstrated the importance of solidarity and collective effort of women's groups. At times, it can seem as though the challenges NGOs and women's activists face are insurmountable. However, through building networks, sharing successes, and devising new strategies to address common problems, it is clear that true progress can be made.

The beautiful lily pond at CRëNIEO, where the Southern Regional Consultation was held

Happy Pongal!

Happy Pongal from EKTA! 

EKTA hosted a Pongal celebration at our training center in Kodimangalam for friends, staff, and colleagues on Saturday. Participants drew beautiful kolam designs, made delicious sweet pongal, enjoyed freshly cut sugarcane, and discussed EKTA's upcoming activities, such as Safe Madurai and One Billion Rising. It was truly a lovely afternoon spent celebrating with friends. 

 

Safe Madurai & a look back at 2012

We had a brief meeting today to discuss the safety audits that local college students and EKTA team members will be conducting across Madurai in the next few weeks. The auditors will travel 5 or 6 routes that the students frequently take to get around the city (for instance, from a busy bus stop to Periyar bus stand) and take note of safety deficits and areas that feel unsafe. These audits will be conducted multiple times. The goal is to gain similar assessments of problems and recommendations for creating a safer Madurai as presented in this study on the safety of women and girls in public spaces in Kerala.

Another on-going project is a review and analysis of all of EKTA's activities in 2012. It is astonishing what a busy year we had! Looking at our projects month-by-month really demonstrates the comprehensive and multifaceted approach ETKA takes to work towards gender equality and the promotion and protection of women's human rights. Here's a list of  some of the diverse trainings, campaigns, and initiatives we've pursued over the last 12 months:

• Participated in a national consultation on the declining child sex ratio in India
• Ran several gender equality seminars and gender & masculinities workshops at colleges and universities across Madurai
• Participated in the UN Women's Consultation on violence against women
• Launched the One Billion Rising campaign, which continues to February 2013
• Part of the People's Budget Initiative at the national level to develop suggestions for the Finance Minister
• Partook in the CEDAW Alternative Report planning consultation in Delhi
• Began and completed an extensive study on women's voting patterns in Tamil Nadu and Orissa, in collaboration with CARE India
• Continued our governance program and trainings, in collaboration with The Hunger Project, with elected women leaders
• Executed the 16 Days of Activism campaign, which included a mobile van campaign that brought information on gender-based violence to women and men in villages in Tamil Nadu
• Conducted group and individual counseling at schools for at-risk students
• Participated in South Asian Women's Day celebrations 
• Helped to launch a new initiative of the Women's Coalition for Change
• Organized and conducted a 10 day capacity building training course on gender and development for women activists from Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka (with our partner SANGAT New Delhi)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from EKTA!

EKTA's media coverage continues to be positive. Last week a great article in the city section of The Hindu detailed our study on Tamil Nadu's Family Courts and what changes need to be implemented to make the courts more effective and accessible for women. The article can be accessed online here.

Madurai's Lotus News channel attended part of our New Year's celebration this past Saturday and members of our team gave interviews on the recent tragedy in Delhi, rape culture in India, and efforts like the Safe Cities campaign which strive to create critical changes to promote women's safety and well-being. The EKTA team is currently brainstorming how to best bring the Safe Cities campaign to Madurai, and we will begin conducting safety audits to assess existing problems in public spaces (for instance, inadequate street lighting). We are planning to unveil the results of this survey and our recommendations for fixing safety deficits at our One Billion Rising culmination event on February 14th.

In other news, we have completed our five-year plan for 2013-2017 and are looking forward to our next big projects! In the new year, OBR and Safe Madurai will be priorities, as well as capacity building efforts to create greater awareness and more effective implementation and enforcement of CEDAW in the southern region of India. 

Have a safe and happy New Year! 

 Lotus News channel conducting interviews at the EKTA office in Madurai

New Year's greetings from EKTA

Next phase planning for EKTA

The past week has been spent planning EKTA's goals and strategies for the next five years. Our ultimate goals remain the same -- creating a gender just society and eliminating discrimination based on gender, class, caste, and religion -- but we are reflecting on past strategies and reaffirming what courses of action we will need to take to meet these aims. Many of our priorities are simply being re-articulated for effectiveness and clarity, such as emphasizing the prevention of violence against women as a distinct concern, although it has always been of great importance to EKTA. EKTA will also remain committed to capacity building, research and documentation, and campaigns, lobbying, and grassroots advocacy. 

We have many continuing projects, including the Safe Cities for Women campaigns and capacity building for elected women leaders in Tamil Nadu, as well as many exciting new projects in development, so stay tuned! (Particularly for details on the culmination of One Billion Rising on February 14th, which we will be sharing shortly).

Here are some fantastic pictures from the Ahayla/OBR launch event. Enjoy! 

 Full house at the Tamil Nadu Chamber of Commerce and Industry 

 Superintendent of Police V. Balakrishnan releasing the One Billion Rising launch poster to C. Ramasubramanian, State Nodal Officer of Mental Health Programme in Tamil Nadu

The protagonist of "Ahalya," a dancer from Asmita Resource Centre for Women, Hyderabad

 Members of the Asmita dance group

 Signing the One Billion Rising pledge poster

EKTA successfully launches ONE BILLION RISING campaign

After months of preparation, EKTA and SANGAT's Nov. 28th event was a phenomenal success. Nearly every seat in the Tamil Nadu Chamber of Commerce auditorium was filled with supporters, college students, press, team members, volunteers, and honorees, and hundreds of attendees signed a pledge to join the One Billion Rising campaign on February 14, 2012. The event's main speakers -- Dr. V. Vasanthi Devi (former Chairperson of Tamil Nadu State Commission for Women), Mr. Thiru V. Balakrishnan (IPS Superintendent of Police, Madurai), and Dr. C. Ramasubramanian (State Nodal Officer, Mental Health Programme, Tamil Nadu) -- gave powerful speeches detailing their experiences and observations of the reality of violence against women in India and Tamil Nadu. Caste, economic, and educational variables all play a role in such violence, and efforts to seek redressal have varying levels of success, if redressal is even pursued. 

The speeches, while sobering, served as strong reminders of the importance of campaigns such as One Billion Rising or the 16 Days Campaign, which strive to eliminate violence against women through combined individual, regional, and global efforts. Citing the fact that an estimated one in three women -- or one billion women -- will be subjected to violence at some point in their lives, Ms. Bimla Chandrasekar, Director of EKTA, officially announced the launch of the One Billion Rising campaign. In celebration of the launch, the ASMITA Resource Centre for Women, Hyderabad, put on a beautiful and moving performance of "Ahalya," which captivated the audience with vibrant costumes, graceful and powerful movements, and a feminist moral.

The event received some wonderful press coverage; click on the link below to read more!

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/violence-against-women-is-deeprooted/article4145454.ece