We have been working
with different groups of individuals be it adolescents or more recently
teachers and Police on gender, sexuality and gender based violence for more
than 2 years now and individually a little more in the development sector or so
they call it! So when Sahas was approached to engage with young students of
Masters in Social work who are currently interning with an organization that
works primarily for justice against Domestic violence case, I was in a dilemma!
There are many reasons for it- we were asked to have conversation on “Social
work, gender and Feminism” and may be talk about our work at Sahas.
We started the session
with a mind mapping around “Social work”- not surprisingly the words that came
initially were: stopping corruption, helping people, betterment of the society,
awareness, equality, unity, justice, change but as someone said ‘Pseudo’ something
changed in the group dynamics and then the words like- New way of money making,
more focused on individuals that the work, symbol of fame, over abused,
hypocrisy, conflicting, impact, and many other negative connotation started
flowing. This gave us a head start in the right direction my dilemma was
insinuating to. In the next part of the first activity, we inquired as to why
the decision of ‘social work’?
“For bringing in social
change”
“Wanted to do something
for myself and others”
“What happened to me, I
don’t want it to happen to the future generations?”
“To help the people in
need”
“To spread awareness,
for educating people”
“I saw something wrong
happening in the society and to live with that was impossible so I took a stand”
Then we moved on the
individual introduction which included name and one positive quality. It was
interesting that even with social work running through the day, it seemed very
difficult for the students to share a positive trait. After this, Mona Yadav, Co-founder at Sahas
shared her experience of being a volunteer all through her college education, a
PhD scholar who is bridging the gap between her education and the work at Sahas,
her bitter sweet journey of beginning of Sahas and what led her to work her way
out. It was then Saurabh, who is the
Founder at ‘Anaa’ shared his journey of an activist that began when he was
merely 16 years old, going to protests, fighting for the women who were victims
of Domestic violence, to being jailed and beaten mercilessly for raising his
voice against the violence. His fight for the justice against the system and
authorities though could scare one but gave us hope that there are many more
like us who really want change to happen irrespective of what hurdles or challenges
we face.
Then, Himanshu Yadav
who has been working with Sahas in capacity of co-facilitator and photographer shared
what social change means to him, his struggles with gender stereotypes since
childhood that made him think that may be something is wrong with him to
challenging the same and now effectively engaging with the boys to see through
these stereotypes that society entraps us into. It was an overwhelming
experience for each one of us because sharing and listening to each other’s struggles
makes us not only relive the moments but also inspire us!
After a quick break we
engage on building understanding on gender, gender based violence, sexuality
and patriarchy. Not a surprise, that most of them still think that gender is
male and female however when we started talking about gender difference, lot
many stories came out-
“Even if I am tired
from college, I would still be doing household work while my brother roams
around”
“My education was put
on hold for 2 years because my parents wanted me to marry, but now I am
studying”
“My sister doesn’t go
out, restricts herself to home and household work, I would like her to be free
and have her opinion heard”
“We have to always ask
for permission for anything or everything that we engage in while same in not
the case with men. We are constantly scrutinized for our actions, inactions and
taunted for everyone’s mistake”
We then shared our
tryst and challenges of working in the social sector – deconstructing the
mirage of ‘Social work’ as in how it is difficult to fit into the new culture
of ‘development sector’, the long hours, the importance of intentions, and many
more. Then the session was opened to questions, so that participants can ask if
they have any curiosities, questions or doubts-
Participant 1- “Did you
face any resistance from parents?”
“We have a very
complicated relationship with parents, we do see a glimpse of their support
here and there, but it has taken a lot of time to come up with even that amount
of agreement. We constantly have discussion on gender in our homes that make
our parents uncomfortable and unhappy but if we can’t have conversation in
homes than working outside probably won’t work”
“I have been thrown out
of my home a number of times but my parents take me back too, so yeah they are
slowly getting comfortable with my idea of activism”
Participant 2- “How do
people respond to your workshops? Do you get resistance too”
“Working on gender is
walking on double edge sword, you are always under personal attack, there is so
much resistance that people can call you names man hating and lot of inappropriate
words. There was this workshop with :Police where a man actually questioned my
intention of a gender activist by saying that I work on gender because some man
would have humiliated me or tortured me, you people always talk about problems
and in my family women are equally respected and lot others. When I started
answering he cut me off in the very first sentence paving my way to the answer
that I am a gender activist because people like him don’t even let me say one
sentence. So we need to be on our toes for such not so welcoming criticism which
all the more emphasize on the importance of work”
Other questions
involved- “Where do you get funding from?”
“Do you think you can
work as activist and still manage a living?”
“In current times, how
difficult it is to point out the misery and wrong doings?”
Moving towards the
closure of our interaction, we invited them to share on “how was the day for
them?”
“I didn’t know many of
the things, it was enlightening, lot of knowledge was imparted. I am glad I could
see your work”
“When I thought we are
visiting an organization, I thought it would some lecture and we would write
points but this was engaging and we were having conversations around the issues
of our life.”
“We have been asked to
go through profiles of several organizations through their websites- they seem
glorious and enchanting however the ground reality seems so different, I never
saw people like you who are so deep down in the work, I learnt a lot. I know
the journey won’t be easy ahead but I know I want to take this”
This was one of a kind
experience for us, as we rarely engage with young people so
talking to would be activists or social workers or development campaigners was
a learning experience and also gave us an opportunity to reflect on our work.
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