The second batch of The Parvaz Feminist Leadership Programme #AbSamjhautaNahin supported by Vivel, graduated at the convocation ceremony on Saturday, 14th July in Delhi. The day also marked the welcome ceremony for next batch of Feminist Leaders and our first ever Men for Gender Justice Program’s batch #BeASakha Fellows – a cadre of young men prepared to take on a journey of transformative change.

The Parvaz Feminist Leadership Programme #AbSamjhautaNahin empowers young women to work in their communities as catalyst of change, providing support and information to women to enable them to claim their rights. The leaders go through a thorough training along with which they also plan and implement individual and community projects based on the needs of their respective communities. Some of the projects undertaken this time included :

Apart from this, the leaders also showcased their leadership qualities by helping people in getting 1195 citizenship documents like Aadhar card, voter ID, Pan card, SC Certificate and Ration Card. They also Helped women and elderly to access Social Security schemes like Widow pension, elderly pension, Single Women Pension and other welfare schemes like Ladli Yojana etc.

Aimed at creating supportive environment for women to be able to access Non-Traditional Livelihoods, Men for Gender Justice has launched a yearlong capacity building #BeASakha Fellowship Program commencing from July, 2018. Twenty-two select young men from resource-poor communities will embark on a journey to become change-agents.They will work towards challenging hegemonic masculinities and changing perspectives about gender based violence and discrimination against women thus support women to access livelihoods with dignity and encourage other young men to challenge notions of hegemonic masculinities around them.

The fellowship is spread over 3 training phases of 6 days each with sessions on gender, patriarchy, masculinities, community mobilisation, communication, etc. They will work in communities alongside Azad’s mobilisation teams and The Parvaz Feminist Leadership Programme #AbSamjhautaNahin FLP leaders, as well as executing their own community projects.

The event was presided over by Azad Foundation’s Program Director, Kolkata -Dolon Ganguly and two very prominent civil society leaders – Kavita Srivastava and AnuvindaVarkey. The event also featured an extremely moving performance by Asmita Theater Group, titled “A Woman Alone”, to depict the collective pressures that a woman goes through in various aspects of her life as a result of patriarchal structures. The day wrapped up with an empowering performance by the musical collective SPACE: Musical Creations for Gender Equality, to capture the overarching themes of the ceremony and the work of The Parvaz Feminist Leadership Programme #AbSamjhautaNahin.