Fellows (2008)
- Wangshikokla Jamir
- Ashish Tiwari
- Lipi Das
- Richa Hushing
- Rrivu Laha
- Sudebi Thakurata
- Tarsh Thakaekara
- Gopal Singh Chouhan
- John Robert Babu
- Madhu J. Mitha
- Mrityunjay Gharami
- Rucha Candvankar
- Sayonika Sengupta
- Vartika Poddar
- Zaidahmed Shaikh
- Ambalal (Ankit) Panchal Hiralal
- Mamta Ranka
- Sangeeta
- Kriti Prakash
- Akshaya Kumar
- Sumit Sisodiya
- Mohammed Azam Qadri
- Krishna Kumar Nayak
- Ravindra Sharma
- Anand Verma
- Yashodhara Sindhu
Wangshikokla Jamir
Wangshikokla has worked with Indo Global Social Service Society in Assam as Youth Coordinator. She has volunteered with SMILE, Assam and has participated in the VSO/ Pravah/British Council organised Global Exchange Program. In her words, ‘The Exchange program really transformed my life. I had an enriching experience and I have a dream of replicating all those learning.
Project Wangshikokla would like to work on “Youth Employment and Youth Empowerment” in Dimapur, Nagaland by promoting Self Help Groups(SHGs) among the youth and form youth clusters, which will create a platform for young people to raise their voices on various issues., besides getting access to information regarding vocational and skill based training.
Ashish Tiwari
Ashish was born and brought up in Delhi with his roots in a small village in Uttar Pradesh. His is a farming family but circumstances had forced his father to migrate to the city. Based in a village in Haryana, Ashish has seen farmlands being sacrificed for real estate development. He is currently collecting data on issues related to modern methods of farming, exploring his own family background as a farmer and thinking of ways to return to his roots.
Project Ashish would first teach himself organic farming and begin to farm himself. From there he would motivate other farmers in his village to switch to organic farming and work on developing markets for organic food. Simultaneously, he would start teaching children in his village so that they don’t have to move to the city and explore how farming can be included in his teaching.
Lipi Das
Lipi, a software engineer, worked with Infosys and also for the education of underprivileged children in the slums of Bhubaneswar. Along with a group of professionals from different fields, she has a team - Professionals’ Association for Action and Development (PAAD), which aims at giving quality education to underprivileged children.
Project Lipi will be developing her dream project of an excellent learning-training center for underprivileged children.
Richa Hushing
Richa has formal training in communication and has studied filmmaking in the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune. The experience of working with Majlis, a centre for multicultural art initiatives, has helped her develop a better understanding of the politics of image creation. She has made a film titled Love Song, that was commissioned by Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT).
Project Richa would like to document life in Dharavi, the world’s largest slum, which is threatened with impending demolition. In her words, ‘Through my lens, I wish to give an expression to an array of thoughts and sentiments brewing in the minds of my subjects. I wish to give voice to their unheard agitations...’
Rrivu Laha
Graduating from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata with Mass Communication & Video Production, Rrivu has worked in the TV industry and has assisted the veteran filmmaker Rakesh Sharma for his documentary “Final Solution” on the post Godhra carnage. He has a post graduate diploma in cinematography from Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune.
Project Rrivu has begun working on ‘Vasudevs’, a culturally threatened community of singing minstrels of Maharashtra. With his ongoing research and preliminary shooting done, he would like to expand the scope of his venture. Moreover, he will organize performances in villages, accompanied by screenings of a 10 min audio-visual showcasing their life and concerns, to generate resources for the Vasudevs’ community centre.
Sudebi Thakurata
A graduate in Chemistry, Sudebi believes that science and arts are actually complimentary. Experiences such as working on a book on child rights for UNICEF, speaking as a panelist in a global conference and undergoing a course of UNESCO has strengthened her beliefs that human unity underlies all disciplines.
Project Sudebi will first identify what young people (from all backgrounds) feel are the most important problems they face. Then, using different art forms and collaborating with experts, she will create a module based workbook for them. Sudebi eventually sees herself going to schools and colleges and training young people with it.
Tarsh Thakaekara
Tarsh grew up in a small town in the Nilgiris, where his parents work with the Adivasi community. He studied in a school with Adivasi children, then was shifted to Rishi Valley. While this exposed him to excellent learning opportunities, it also highlighted for him the vast economic and social differences in India. After a stint in a software company Tarsh has moved back to Gudalur to teach in a school for Adivasi children.
Project Tarsh wants to examine and document the relationship Adivasis have with the forest and look for ways in which they can be involved in conservation efforts. He also hopes to look for ways in which some of the indigenous knowledge can be preserved.
Gopal Singh Chouhan
Gopal is from Bikaner, Rajasthan and is a humanities graduate. He has felt himself strongly drawn towards doing ‘something meaningful’. He has trained with SIDH and has worked with Ajit Foundation in Bikaner and with Doosra Dashak. Gopal is strongly inspired by Gandhian philosophy.
Project Gopal would like to initiate a dialogue with people from different backgrounds to elicit their aspirations and expectations from life in a context of indiscriminate modernisation.
John Robert Babu
John is from Indira Point, the southernmost tip of India in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. In his words, his people “are the invisible population in many ways. And hence to create an identity for ourselves is a major struggle of mine”. With his mother as an active member of the Panchayat for the last 15 years, John has grown up with a sense of social awareness.
Project John will be taking up the issue of school dropouts among the Tribal Nicobari and Fishermen communities of Campbell Bay - to find out how to limit this phenomenon.
Madhu J. Mitha
Madhu, is from Chennai and has spent, in her words, “half my life there and the other half in Mumbai”. She is presently doing a field action project in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands as a part of her MSW course at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai.
Project Madhu would like to work on a literacy program with community women at the Great Nicobar Islands. It is her hope that the literacy program would ignite an Anti-arrack movement, address some of the issues relating to women, and most importantly, give the community women a platform to come together.
Mrityunjay Gharami
Mrityunjay lives in the Kalighat area of Kolkata, Having been brought up near a thriving red light zone area, he wants to work with the young men in the area so that they actively oppose violence against women and no longer act as pimps for minor girls in prostitution.
Project Mrityunjay will be identifying about 15 young men - men who are in substance abuse/petty crimes/act as pimps for women in prostitution and organise adda sessions with them (adda, a Bengali word, stands for chatting about every thing under the sun, with no particular purpose). He will gradually direct these adda sessions to map the gender understanding of the these men and ultimately build a specific action plan for gender justice and changing the real life situations of the women in their area.
Rucha Candvankar
‘As far back as I can remember, discussions in our house have always surrounded politics and art and culture and books.’ Both of Rucha’s parents have worked with tribal people on issues of health, education and employment, and this has eventually influenced her choice to do a Masters in social work.
Project Rucha would like to develop a pedagogical framework that would help a group of young adults and young grassroots level activists understand reality politically. Her curriculum would be one where science is taught from what one sees in nature, lessons in geography start from the village structure and in which rules and laws of civic administration are taught. Rucha feels that her project would support the learners to make a significant difference at their community level.
Sayonika Sengupta
Sayonika was born and brought up in Patna. In her school days she used to raise funds, collect books and clothes and interact with children of the 'basti' which was close to her school. According to her, the next turning point came in her life when she joined Pravah as a SMILE volunteer.
Project Sayonika will focus on working with children in the age group 10-16 who go to schools. She wants to work in Mamuni in Rajasthan. Her idea is to engage with children through games, walks, film screenings, theatre and puppetry.
Vartika Poddar
Vartika comes from what she considers a privileged background, and in her own words, ‘... the struggle between the various aspects of privilege is evident in my questions, explorations and choices.’ She works with children in Kolkata on various projects including theatre workshops, art and craft from waste material, and filmmaking.
Project SWABHAV is a learning centre that Vartika is setting up in Kolkata. Through a range of arts and activities including painting (everything from walls to faces!), handicrafts, theatre, organic gardening, filmmaking, creative writing, music, dance, cooking, SWABHAV will instill and restore confidence, self-belief and self-worth in all individuals, as well as work towards creating a just and sustainable world.
Zaidahmed Shaikh
Zaidahmed is from an area called Jamalpur in Ahmedabad. He was still studying in college in 2002 when the “riots” broke out in Ahmedabad. He worked with riot affected children, and attended trainings around psycho-social counseling and life skills. He has worked on creating and conducting a “peace curriculum” with Dalit and Muslim children in the city.
Project Zaidahmed would like to create a curriculum which reflects social realities and links peace to social, economic and political justice. The initiative that he propose will be a step towards creating a worldview among school students, which is just and humane and will strengthen the people’s struggle for a democratic secular nation.
Ambalal (Ankit) Panchal Hiralal
Ankit grew up in a tribal belt and has witnessed various injustices towards tribal people. Appalled by the malpractices around him, including in his workplace, he decided to fight against the system. His training in conflict resolution helped him to take a stance and start looking for win- win solutions to fight corruption. He has worked with young people to empower them to live proactively as citizens.
Project Ankit wants to work towards the empowerment of tribal youth and use their expertise to bring about change at their community level.
Mamta Ranka
Several experiences in conflict in her life and her neighborhood made Mamta decide to work for social change at one point in her life. Till now, she has been working as a village coordinator for Seva Mandir in Rajasthan.
Project Mamta would like to take up a project that would focus on the execution of the democratic system and work against corruption. She will collaborate with the village Panchayat, government organizations and the civil society to reach her goal.
Sangeeta
Coming from a small village, Sangeeta had to travel 36 kilometres to continue with her studies and oppose her own marriage at a young age. As a community mobiliser with Samavesh, Sangeeta has worked for women’s empowerment and on issues of the Panchayat in 3 villages in the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh.
Project Sangeeta would like to work with young girls from villages and marginalized sections of society. Through her project she will create a platform where young girls can come together to share and solve the issues they confront. Through various workshops, Sangeeta will develop their knowledge and understanding, and build their ownership for this space.
Kriti Prakash
Kriti has done her Masters in Women’s Studies. She has worked in projects and campaigns on issues of violence against women. Working in an organization that focuses on the human rights of Muslim women and children has deepened her passion to work on the issue of communalism.
Project Kriti will work on communalism and spread awareness amongst the youth on the issue. She aims at establishing a line of youth leadership that would spread political awareness amongst people.
Akshaya Kumar
An engineer from IIT, Kanpur, Akshaya quit the corporate sector last year. He has been traveling to various parts of the country to get a feel of the geographical, social or economic challenges people face, discussing various problems of society regularly with others and has been reading extensively and regularly.
Project Akshaya will highlight the issue of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in the troubled Kashmir and North-East. By writing, documenting, debating and protesting peacefully against this Act, Akshaya will focus on democratic means and human rights as vital to the health of every democracy.
Sumit Sisodiya
Through a series of apprenticeships and workshops, Sumit has been learning filmmaking over the last two and half years and sees it as a tool for social change. His concern for the environment was sparked off by an exposure to the state of the River Yamuna. Recently he has been filming at the Narmada and listening to the voices of the displaced.
Sumit would like to organize exposure trips and create groups that will film outdoors to cover different issues. ‘In this way’, he says, ‘we will together discover the issues, about ourselves and also what we need to change within ourselves and communicate to others.’ He will also organize small informal events where ordinary people will be able to meet different people who are working on issues relevant to their lives.
Mohammed Azam Qadri
Azam has studied Mass Communication in Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi after completing 12th in his native village in UP. Having a visually impaired sibling and experiencing communal conflict post the Babri Masjid demolition have moved him to engage with society. He started working to teach theater to visually impaired women at the National Association of the Blind two years ago, while he was still an active volunteer in Pravah’s SMILE programme.
Project Azam will work intensively on his project of teaching theater to visually impaired people with two aims: to develop their sense of self worth and confidence, and to build awareness in the larger society about disability – something he feels is lacking till now.
Krishna Kumar Nayak
Having completed his BSc from Bhopal in 2006, Krishna has been working in the Bhimapur development block of Baitul, which is primarily a tribal area. His work areas include developmental issues like the working of panchayats, establishment of grain banks and self help groups in villages besides awareness building about the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA). He has also been involved in the Tara Akshar computer literacy program for women.
Through advocacy and sensitisation drives, Krishna wants to broaden and deepen the reach of the the NREGA programme. He feels that due to lack of awareness efforts to popularize the scheme many families, especially those belonging to the tribal areas, have been denied the benefits of NREGA. For this work he wants to focus on 15 villages which he plans to reach through youth facilitators, who will engage and involve the residents, especially the youth on these issues.
Ravindra Sharma
With his father, who works on various social issues, as his biggest influences, Ravindra Ravindra decided quite early on to devote himself to grassroots work, joining the Swadeshi and Swaraj campaigns, after completing high school from Bhopal in 2001. Later he worked with various organizations of developmental issues in villages. Ravindra believes that people are inherently good and well meaning. They just need some guidance and capacity building for pursuing the correct action. This precisely is the work of a social activist.
Project Ravindra will work for awareness generation in the rural areas. He wants to challenge the oft held stereotypical notions of a ‘village’ as essentially being ‘backward’ and ‘underdeveloped’ by raising issues like health, untouchability, and overall development which will lead to a relatively more equitable society.
Anand Verma
Inspired by the Narmada Bachao Andolan where he volunteered, Anand has been working actively for the past few years on issues of social development and legal affairs. For the past one year, Anand has been working with ‘Yuva Samvad’ – an informal and non hierarchial youth network, working on issues like religious tolerance, gender discrimination and communal issues. He is taking up his Commutiny project as the representative of a six member team.
Anand and five other members of Yuva Samvad, want to work on building youth leadership and involve youth in effective partnership and resource building among a targeted 5000 youth in the state of Madhya Pradesh.
Yashodhara Sindhu
Yashodhara, a resident of Mumbai, has been working as a tele-film maker with an organization, Akshara. Her previous work in the Stri Mukti Sangathan has had a special influence on Yashodhara, who feels strongly for women’s empowerment. She has also been involved in micro saving and self help group schemes among women, which has further strengthened her beliefs.
Project Yashodhara wants to work towards empowering women, especially young girls by the means of encouraging and providing facilities for them to play sports. She believes that due to socialization, girls are encouraged to stay indoors while activities like sports are restricted to the males. Wanting to overcome this distinction, Yashodhara plans to use mediums like sports, theatre and films to encourage groups of young women to overcome these social barriers.