“Campaign Chronicle” is closed wef today for new posts. We will reopen the blog September 1, 2010. You can still browse the blog and leave comments.
We invite you to visit this ‘live’ album of our activities and processes, and encourage you to share the URL with others.
Some blog-related initiatives will now transfer to this site, such as ‘Bursting Media Bubbles.’
CHENNAI: What is a Twestival? Its when users of the popular micro-blogging website Twitter gather in support of a local cause.
The Chennai edition of ‘Twestival Local’, was held on Thursday at Alliance Francaise in support of Prajnya trust, a NGO that works on issues related to gender violence.
As part of the festival, a western classical concert was held, at which donations were collected for Prajnya, which is organising a 16 day campaign in November and December to raise awareness about facts, laws and services related to gender the violence.
According to Lavanya Ravishankar and Adithya Shrikrishna, who are the local organisers of Twestival, the motive behind the festival is to encourage the twitter community to take up a local charity’s cause. They also wish to raise awareness of the reach of such micro-blogging websites. Over 130 causes will be supported at such local festivals to be held in cities around the world, between September 10 and 13.
The idea for the festival was mooted in September last year by a group of Twitter users from London. In February this year, Twestival raised $ 2.5 lakh to fund drinking water projects for villages in Africa.This led to the twestival local, which is aimed at people and causes in the neighbourhood.
Another concert by a Chennai-based band is scheduled at the same venue on September 12, as part of the festival. Twestivals are also being hosted at other cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, New Delhi, Mumbai and Pune.
Track media coverage on the 16 Days Campaign at the Prajnya website: http://www.prajnya.in/16d08media.htm
What have we been up to since August? Good question, and about time someone asked us, considering it’s been about two months since the PSW Diary was updated.
A birthday!
Prajnya turned one on September 9, the anniversary of its launch in 2007. Read our anniversary update.
16 Days Campaign
For the most part, we have been frantically busy with conceptualizing programs and setting up partnerships for the Prajnya 16 Days Campaign against Gender Violence. Although there are days when we wish things would go faster, on the whole, we are not doing too badly. At the moment of writing this post, partnerships are almost sewn up for all the 16 Days. This is no mean feat, we assure you and congratulate ourselves, given:
We alternate between excitement and anxiety.
Some of our anxiety inevitably has to do with money. Planned frugally and with resource re-use in mind, the campaign is still going to cost more than Prajnya has. We are moving ahead in spite of this in the faith that good work with good intentions brings its own resources. We are also planning each program in a way that can be scaled up or down depending on the resources we end up with.
But if you think this is a good cause and want to help us, you can find out how by looking here.
Resource Centre News
September was also important for us because the first of the research projects undertaken by the Prajnya Women in Politics and Policy Resource Centre was completed and published online.
Women Taking Action: A Survey of Chennai Women’s Organisations
Sweta Narayanan
The growth of organisations dedicated to serving women in India is interesting on account of its relevance and growing importance in the current scenario of accelerated women’s empowerment. This paper reviews the nature and working of women’s organisations in Chennai, as a lens to the Indian women’s movement. Its structure will serve to highlight two major objectives of the paper – a brief overview of the course of the women’s movement in the country and a detailed description of the activities of 20 organisations, from advocacy groups to service providers, currently working towards women’s welfare in Chennai.
We are so delighted to cross this milestone! Let us know if you want a soft copy of this paper by writing to us at prajnyatrust@gmail.com.
If you are a publishing professional, editor or designer, we are looking for people who will volunteer to design for us. Right now, everything including our website and almost all our logos are done in-house and our needs are slowly outstripping our capacity.
Prajnya and social networking
In this last period, we started a Facebook group for Prajnya. Look for us on Facebook as the group ‘Friends of Prajnya.’ This is a prelude to setting up a page for the 16 Days Campaign on the same networking site.
The PSW Weblog 