Republic Day Cafe Mohalla with Radha Kant Saxena

For Republic Day, Cafe Mohalla welcomed many new members to listen to Radha Kant Saxena, the  retired Director General of Rajasthan Police prisons and current Vice President of the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties. Mr. Saxena is a tireless advocate for reform of the criminal justice system, and he generously shared many of his personal experiences and views with the group to raise awareness of this important issue.

In keeping with the holiday, he centered his talk around the constitution's rights and duties towards Indian citizens. He spoke about the frequent corruption of justice seen throughout the nation today, and shared some personal stories highlighting this issue, as well as corruption in politics as a whole.

Mr. Saxena's session was also highly inspirational, as he described his faith in today's youth to tackle this problem and move the country forward on this issue. The Right To Information Act, among other tools, is essential in bringing government officials to respect their duties towards normal citizens. Perhaps most importantly, as Mr. Saxena said in reference to making progress on any social issue, "In each of us there is a Mother Teresa, it is just up to us to have the courage to live our life in that way."

Afterward, we had a question-and-answer session, and a discussion led by Meenakshi and Richa of how to bring these values into our everyday lives. Volunteers shared their own stories, with Aditi speaking about her experience working on education, and Siddhant sharing on how his views of reservations changed when he saw the other side of the story. Saurab spoke about he and other students from MNIT started an NGO called Utthan that works to educate physically and mentally challenged children.

Lastly, there was an informal chat with a group of Global Exchange Volunteers from the UK and India who are working in a village in Tiloniya, Urmul, near Jaipur, and a session explaining Cafe Mohalla and PJI to all new members. Afterward, we shared snacks and played a game of frisbee. Jaiveer announced his new action project,"Pukar--The Unheard Voices", which will document how the lives of people have been changed since the Jaipur bomb blasts of 2008. Anyone interested in being a part of this project can contact Jaiveer or attend the first meeting on Feb. 2nd at 1 pm.

In all, the Republic Day Cafe was a huge success. Bhaumik, Sunil, and Meenu worked to organize all the activities, and over 50 people were in attendance.

18 months of Community video unit team in PJI

Pravah Jaipur initiative is a youth development organization that facilitates the leadership journey of young people through experiential learning.
The nature of work inspired Pravah to take up Community Video as one of its programme and Aaina TV came into the existence in 2009.

Aaina TV: Through this unit Pravah Jaipur Initiative (PJI) is trying to bridge the gap between the youth from the marginalized section of the society and the urban youth.

Through this CVU Pravah, Jaipur has trained local community members in community video production. The Community Video Unit (CVU) comprises of 6 community members who are trained as full-time Community Video Producers. They are between the age of 18 to 30.They have produced 4 "video Magazines" on different social issues like road safety, water and active citizenship. The team robustly feels that video is a tool for them to expand scale and reach, promote awareness and information, and to enable communities to advocate and negotiate with relevant authorities.

Brief about producers

1.Seema Gupta – After joining the CVU team and working as a producer, she can feel the change in herself. She feels that now she has started thinking, developing her own point of view. As she herself said “Most importantly, I have started working for others also, which provides me great satisfaction.” She wishes to create another CVU in her community and train youth in community video.

2.Meenu Pareek After being ill-treated in her own house she finds strength in her work at the CVU. She wants to continue making films on issues to become a change maker in her community.

3.Abhishek Chanwaria studying in class 12^th and making films on social issues gives him immense confidence. Once a shy guy, he express himself very confidently now. He is always ready to learn new software - whether it’s from his trainer or a volunteer visiting Pravah. He loves that after he joined the CVU, his community sees him in a new light – takes him more seriously.

4.Mohammad Khalil: He used cut and polish gemstones before. But he loves being part of the CVU and feels lucky to have learnt filmmaking. He wants to change the future of his community through the lens of camera.

5.Rahul Sharma: Technically the sharpest of the group. He wants to become a filmmaker himself.

6.Rajesh Kumar: Once an extremely shy person, Rajesh has grown as an individual during his stints at the CVU. He is part of every screening and takes the initiative in conducting post screening discussions. He wants to continue to work as a film maker and want to make documentaries on issues related to marginalized communities.

Assessment:

The community producers at Aaina T.V. are a young and energetic group. They have lived in Jaipur and thus were exposed to the medium even before they joined Aaina T.V. Thus they are technically quite strong and have understood the medium well.

Pravah Jaipur Initiative was at a nascent stage when the CVU was formed. The producers were selected from the community based on their interest. But from the very beginning all the producers participated in all the other programmes in Pravah. This gave them a strong base to overcome their inhibitions as well as an opportunity to learn new things apart from their regular training. In the last eighteen months they have learnt to make radio spots, mime, theatre and thus Pravah also feels that CVU is a useful tool for their overall communication activities.

Innovation by the group

For increased community mobilization Aaina T.V. would make small radio spots on social issues like RTI, active citizenship etc. and would then play it on the loud speakers. This not only attracted a large crowd but kept it interested as each time they would come up with a new idea/style for audio spot. They even use this opportunity to promote and discuss the theme/date of their films.

Impact: Aaina T.V was an integral part of Pravah and they participated in all of Pravah’s other programs wholeheartedly. Since Pravah was also at a nascent stage when CVU was formed, Aaina T.V. helped Pravah to set its roots in Jaipur. Four films were made by Aaina T.V. and their impacts were:

1. Ek Pehal badlav ki: A film on environment- on growing trees: kicked off a campaign on tree plantation in some areas. Not only did the residents participate in this campaign but one of them also volunteered to get tree guards for the planted trees and took responsibility of maintaining the plants.
2. Since Aaina T.V. actively participated in Pravah’s other programs, during one such meeting in the slum, women approached the producers and spoke about the issue of aggressive alcoholism in their areas and the devastation that it has caused. They urged Aaina T.V. members to make a film on it. Thus the community not only treated the CVU as their voice but actively participated in it.
3. After a film on water conservation “Jaldhara Jeevandhara” one of the community members – actually took the initiative and constructed a rain water harvesting structure in his house.

Challenges faced:

Pravah had a full time trainer and were happy with the skill level of their producers. The biggest challenge that Pravah faces now is the sustainability of these producers and the CVU. We spoke about producers taking up small documentation films, but with cut throat competition in Jaipur they seemed skeptical about it. It was also suggested that this team could be converted into a documentation unit of Pravah wherein they would document Pravah’s programmes as well as approach other NGOs to do their documentation.

Fly Peace Kites makes an impact

PJI's Fly Peace Kites Campaign has been a huge success over the past weekend, as the campaign has visited different colleges, NGOs, and public spaces around Jaipur, and young people in attendance have taken notice of this creative campaign for peace. Through theater, music, kite flying, and other innovative mediums, the volunteer group has effectively started a conversation about peace in society among thousands of young people in the city.

With recent visits to Maharani College, ICG, MNIT, LBS College, Guarav Towers, and Faith NGO, large crowds have come to enjoy the different parts of the event. The street theater skit, which is about the meaning of peace among each different level of society, including the home and family, has been a huge hit. The original compositions by Ritansh, Shevang, and Karan also took the message of peace and explored it through experimentation and mixing of different genres, and their performances have been a big hit at every venue.

The use of kites to spread this message has been a big success as well, as thousands of kites with different peace messages have been written and flown around Jaipur. The PJI campaigners have used the kites to provoke thought about this complicated topic and record the thoughts of many young people from different backgrounds and communities.

We invite you to join us as this campaign continues at Umang NGO and IIRM tomorrow, for the final day. The event at IIRM will be from 1 to 3 pm. Come and be a part of the movement towards peace!

Fly Peace Campaign!

PJI's Fly Peace Campaign was kicked off today with a pair of events at Rajasthan School of Art and Sanjay Teacher's Training College! Hundreds of students were in attendance at both events, and the crowds thoroughly enjoyed the musical performances, theater skits, and kite flying activities.

At the Raj. School of Art in Kishan Pole Bazaar, the Fly Peace Campaign event was up on the roof. It was inaugurated with a speech by local artist Ekeshwar Hatwal, who decorated scores of kites with his sketches and designs centered on the concept of peace and other social issues. Afterward, we were treated to performances by Ritansh who rapped 'Teen Bandir', and Shevang, who sang 'Jai Guru Dev' and played guitar. Next was a theater performance by our very own volunteers, and an hour of kite flying from the roof.

At STTC, the event was repeated but with different songs performed, and Ritansh and Karan together mixed rap and classical in their original song 'We are like Free Birds.' The crowd really got into it, and also appreciated the anchoring by Maneesha and Pritika.

The campaign continues tomorrow with a visit to Maharani College at 11 am. Come check it out!