PAIRVI has been, for many years, organizing the national workshops to build perspective of the CSOs on various issues and to create a platform for sharing advocacy strategies, celebrating our successes and reflecting on gaps and challenges. This time PAIRVI has focused to build capacity and advocacy skill of youths and organized the National Youth Workshop on Nurturing Youth, Creating Possibilities. The workshop was organized at Hotel Rajputana Ranthambhore, Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan on 26-28 December 2023. The workshop witnessed participation of 24 participants from Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Delhi. Advocacy and community outreach are essential skills for anyone who wants to make a positive impact on the world. While working with CSOs it is important to have the ability to rightly communicate the message, mobilize the supporters, and influence the decision-makers. We have collectively learnt how to plan, practice and proceed for advocacy in this participatory and interactive workshop. During this workshop, we have focussed on Constitution, Development, Human Rights, Community, Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship.
Day 1
The workshop started with the introductory session. Rajneesh Shrivastava moderated this session. He welcomed the participants and briefed the nature and scope of this workshop followed by introduction of the participants.
The technical session of the workshop starts with presentation of Dr. AD Singh, RML NLU, Lucknow on Revisiting the preamble of Indian Constitution. In this session, he focussed on Preamble, Constitutional values and moralities. Constitution is not a mere lawyer’s documents, it is a vehicle of Life, and its spirit is always the spirit of the age. It is the structure on which a nation stands and grows. It is the framework, which binds together the people and the government. ‘People’ is kept as the core of the Indian Constitution, as the Preamble itself starts with “We the people of India.” There are certain values enshrined in our Constitution, which make it unique. The Preamble to any Constitution is a brief introductory statement that conveys the guiding principles of the documents. It is guiding principle for sustainability of human civilization as a whole. Certain values in the Indian Constitution guide the nation and its citizens. These are sovereignty, socialism, secularism, democracy, and republican character of Indian State, justice, liberty, equality, fraternity, and the unity and integrity of the Nation. Fundamental Duties are also the essential values of Indian Constitution. Dr. Singh briefly describe all these value, it importance and challenges in realisations of these values. He also focussed on how to strengthen these values in our work.
Advocate Virendra Tripathi from Amaltas, Kaushal Kabir from Nagrik Adhikar Manch and Shailesh Gautam from Centre for Dalit Rights were discussant of this session. They had shared their experience, learning and challenges while working on this issue in the field. After this session, an open discussion was conducted where every participants shared three most important constitutional values that are related to their work. They shared their view and experience on the constitutional value. Two short videos on making of Indian Constitution and fundamental rights in folk song were shown during the session.
Ajay Jha, PAIRVI, facilitated the second technical session on development, sustainability and Human Rights. Mr. starts this session with a presentation on Development, rights and sustainability. He said that India has witnessed tremendous growth since independence. India has become fifth largest economy in the world. Contribution to the world GDP increased to 9% from 3% at the time of independence. However, the development had brought some inherent anomalies. 13,5 crore lifted out of poverty during 2016-2021. Multidimensional poverty (health, education standard of living) reduced by 9.89%, from 24.85% to 14.96%. Still 74.1% cannot afford healthy food (SOFI, FAO, 2023). India ranks 111/125 countries (GHI, 2023). With a score of 28.7 (serious hunger), reduced nominally since 2015 (score 29.2).Inequality in India increasing. Women will still take hundreds of years to have income parity. In India top 1 percent share the one third of national wealth while bottom 50 percent share less than 6 percent of the national wealth. He said every inequality contribute to death of 21300 people globally. War and militarisation have crippled the world. Not only Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Palestine etc. but 183 wars and conflicts are taking place around the world which is highest in last three decades. World military expenditure has touched USD 2 trillion in 2021. He further explained about planetary boundaries, sustainable development goals, and climate justice. Navprabhat from Mount Valley Development and Jitendra from Samadhan Foundation were discussant of this session.
Last Technical Session was on Digitalization and Human Rights. Dr. AD Singh from RMLNLU, Lucknow presented a presentation on digital human rights. In the era of rapid technological advancement and digital transformation, the way we live, communicate, work, and access information has drastically evolved. The internet, mobile devices, social media, and digital services have become integral parts of our daily lives. While these technological advancements have brought numerous benefits, they have also given rise to critical issues related to human rights in the digital sphere. Digital human rights encompass a broad range of principles and protections that are fundamental in ensuring that individuals can navigate the digital world with dignity, privacy, and freedom. He brief the participants about Privacy in the Digital Age, Freedom of Expression Online, Net Neutrality, Digital Security, Data Protection, Artificial Intelligence, National Legal framework as well as international convention and treaties. After this presentation an open discussion session was organized.
At the end of the day, the participants made their observation and reflection on each session and shared their leanings.
Day 2
Second day begun with presentation of Ajay Sharma, Amaltas on Team building and leadership. He discussed about the leadership quality, limitations, team building process and challenges of teamwork. He focussed on basic understanding of team and team building, symptoms of team building, ways and means of team building, leadership, types of leadership, quality of a good leader, how to develop the leadership, emotional intelligence, leaders’ vs managers and conflict management were discussed. Team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance, goal and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. Whereas team building is a management technique used for improving the efficiency and performance of the workgroups through various activities. It involves a lot of skills, analysis and observation for forming a strong and capable team. The sole motive here is to achieve the organization’s vision and objectives. Team building is an ongoing process that helps a work group evolve into a cohesive unit. With good team-building skills, employees can unite around a common goal and generate greater productivity. Leadership is the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of goals. Success of any campaign, movement and organization depend upon the leadership and team. Ramswarup from Gramin Punarnirman Sansthan and Rashi from India is Calling Youth were discussants in this session.
After this theoretical session participants, simulation exercise was also conducted. Participants were divided in four groups and played a brief role showing their leadership quality.
After this session, Ajay Jha conducted second technical session. His presentation was based on community mobilization. In this session, he discussed about basics of community, community mobilization, need of community mobilization, ways and means to mobilize the community, quality of community mobilizer, role and responsibility of community mobilizer. Community mobilization is the process of engaging communities to identify community priorities, resources, needs and solutions in such a way as to promote representative participation, good governance, accountability, and peaceful change. It engages all sectors of the population in a community- wide effort to address an issue. It brings together policy makers and opinion leaders, local, state, and central governments, professional groups, religious groups, businesses, and individual community members. Community mobilization empowers individuals and groups to take some kind of action to facilitate change. This presentation also emphasised on cycle of community mobilization, which includes preparation for mobilisation, organizing the community action, determination of core issues, and priorities, planning together, acting together, evaluating together and post review action. Representatives from Amaltas, JJBVK, Jan Sikshan Kendra and Samgra Seva were discussants in this session.
Ajay Jha also conducted third Technical Session of the day. In this session, he briefly discussed about the Participatory Learning and Action (PLA). PLA is a participatory approach that believes that people have the knowledge and the skill to improve their situation. It is a community based approach to research and consultation (and action and analysis) that gives priority to the views of local people on the basis that they are the experts and are best to come up with a programme of collective action and results. Through PLA, local people can explore and share their knowledge life and local conditions as well as make decisions, plan and carry out actions to effect change in their community. He focussed on key strategy, ground rules, principle, methods and tools of PLA. At the end of this session, he elaborated three important tools of PLA that include social mapping, transect walk and time line. Social mapping is a visual representation of any area containing relevant social/cultural/religious information from the view of local people. Transect is a structured walk around the identified area/village/community with the local people who know the area well. Whereas Time lines help to record changes in a community/household/life of a community member over time. They are a way of recording the important historical markers and milestones of a community or individual, giving a wider historical context to issues being discussed. After this session, a group exercise was conducted. Participants were divided into three groups and they conducted and presented their work on aforesaid three tools of PLA.
At the end of the day, the participants made their observation and reflection on each session and shared their leanings.
Day 3
Last day of the workshop was focussed on social entrepreneurship. Divyanshu from Dehat India was the key facilitator of this session. He made a presentation on exploring the social entrepreneurship. In the Indian social justice context, social entrepreneurs and enterprises are crucial because they actively address social issues and gaps in areas where traditional systems and government initiatives may fall short. They bring innovative, sustainable solutions to complex social problems, often combining social welfare goals with entrepreneurial techniques. This approach allows for more flexible, creative solutions to poverty, education, healthcare, and environmental sustainability. Social enterprises can mobilise resources, generate employment, and foster local development, all while promoting social inclusion and empowerment, making them vital contributors to social justice in India. He focussed on why it is important, what to do, when to kick off, where to start and how to strategize the social entrepreneurship. He also focussed on necessity of resources, how to the financial assistance from government and how to overcome the challenges. Representatives from Jan Jagriti Seva Samiti and Samadhan Foundation were discussant of this session. After this session, an open discussion was organized on this topic. Participants shared their own views and concerns.
At the end of this workshop, participants shared their feedback in the fish bowl method. They were asked to make their comments/ observation/reflection/suggestion on workshop sessions as well as other logistic arrangements. Every participant made her/his remarks. They appreciated the workshop; however, some of them asked more time to participants, better time management and organise special workshops on some of the themes discussed in this workshop, as it requires more discussion, deliberation and participation. The workshop concluded with resolve to further engagement and cooperation on public advocacy and capacity building.
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