Last Month at OFC | February 2020

A recap of what the team at One Future Collective has been up to, in the past month.

Workshop: Image Based Sexual Abuse and the Law, Sophia College for Women

Vandita Morarka, our team member, hosted a workshop on Image based Sexual Abuse and the Law at Sophia College for Women on 3rd February. This workshop was conducted in collaboration with End Cyber Abuse (ECA) in Mumbai. The workshop focused on image based sexual abuse in India and aimed for participants to understand what image based sexual abuse is and how it can manifest in different ways, explored sexting, consent and relationships, the law around image based sexual abuse in India including the good and bad elements of it and the correct pathways for support if we come across image-based sexual abuse. Overall, the workshop saw enriching conversations, learning, peer insights sharing and received great feedback.

Workshop: Menstruation and Menstrual Hygiene, Robinhood Army

Our team members Jerin Jacob and Prerna Laddha conducted a session on Menstruation and Menstrual Hygiene for children at a construction site in Thane in association with Robinhood Army’s Thane Tank Cluster on 8th February. The 20 children who attended the workshop acknowledged their learnings and their mothers assured us that they’d put these learnings to use in their daily menstrual practices.

Certificate Course: Intoduction to Feminist Lawyering, Christ University, Bangalore

On the 8th and 9th of February, the FemJustice Legal Center of One Future Collective ran a two-day certificate course on Practising Feminist Lawyering at School of Law, Christ University, Bangalore. It was facilitated by Vandita Morarka and Nishma Jethwa. With over 50 participants, the two days witnessed incredible conversations, activities and learning around the concepts of gender and the law, gender based violence and how lawyers can re-work their practices to make the formal legal process a healing one for survivors of gender based violence.

Rainbow Club #1: Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore

The Rainbow Club is a safe community space for queer persons and their allies where they can engage in conversations, peer learning, and co-leadership development. The club will run across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore and meet every 6 weeks for 3 hours. The Rainbow Club was launched across these three cities on the 8th and 9th of February 2020 and hosted safe conversations for learning and sharing for community members.

Webinar: Young Womxn on the Frontlines- Perspectives from Young Womxn Ahead of CSW64

CIVICUS organised a webinar to centre the experience of young womxn in the civic space. They explored how they organised their work and key challenges they faced, while including young womxn speakers from international NGOs that have focused on gender equality, civic space and the human rights of womxn and girls. Shruti Venkatesh, our Program Director for Queer Rights was one of the speakers at the Webinar.

Panel Discussion: Zeitgeist x Niti Samvaad

Our Founder and CEO, Vandita Morarka was a panelist at Zeitgeist at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai on the 15th of February. The panel focused on the intersections of data, influence and rights and examined implications of evolving technology on access, rights and privacy.

Sanskaari Girls Book Club Meetups #11: ‘Hum Dekhenge’ by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

The Sanskaari Girls Book Club met up across cities on the 16th of February this time to discuss and critically analyse the revolutionary poem ‘Hum Dekhenge’ by Faiz Ahmed Faiz. The conversations that followed saw a sharing of multiple viewpoints and perspectives and were intense, liberating and fruitful in general. Here are photo snippets from our Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Bay Area meetups.

Tweetchat: Queer Inclusion at the Workplace

The Tweetchat focused on queer inclusion at the workplace with the hashtag #queeringworkplaces and was held on 19th February 2020. The chat was moderated by Harshil Shah. We asked participants what a queer inclusive workplace meant to them, discussed the policies, practices and changes that makes workplaces inclusive and so on. We got a wide variety of responses and some very interesting ones which we also discussed at our Queer Inclusion at the Workplace workshop later in the month.

Workshop: Gender Sensitisation and Anti-Sexual Harassment Laws, TISS, Mumbai

We conducted a training on Gender Sensitisation and Antisexual Harassment Laws for Tata Institute of Social Sciences- Vocational Sudies Department on 21st February and had some very insightful conversations with educators and administrators.

Workshop: Queer Inclusion at the Workplace

The workshop on Queer Inclusion at the Workplace took place on the 22nd of February and focused on understanding employment and workplace barriers faced by queer persons in India, the costs of being an exclusionary and discriminatory workplace as well as various queer friendly policies, behaviours and infrastructures which every workplace must implement. The workshop was well attended and received great feedback.

Certificate Course: Gender Sensitisation and Anti-Sexual Harassment Laws, Delhi and Mumbai

The certificate course on Gender Sensitisation and Anti-Sexual Harassment Laws was conducted on the 22nd-23rd February in Delhi and 29th February-1st March in Mumbai. The courses saw dedicated participation, learning and interactive expert sessions. Day 1 focused on gender sensitisation, sexual violence, consent and diversity and inclusion. This session also covered various legal elements and existing laws which aim to protect marginalised communities. Day 2 was focused on PoSH which aims to foster a safe and secure environment for women by preventing, prohibiting, and redressing instances of sexual harassment at workplaces in India. The participants learnt redressal mechanisms, the importance of addressing sexual harassment at the workplace, the ICC redressal process and what their anti sexual harassment policy should look like. Here are photo snippets from the courses in Delhi and Mumbai.

Workshop: Perception Building Towards Victims of Violence, Delhi

We collaborated with The YP Foundation on 28th February to host a workshop on perception building. This workshop on ‘Perception Building Towards Victims of Violence’ sought to encourage participants to reflect on their understandings of violence and learn about the processes of victimisation and re-victimisation while developing a feminist attitude towards victims of violence.