MISAAL FELLOWSHIP PROGAMME

: YOUTH FOR

INCLUSIVE DEVELOPME

NT

Induction Training Report

Misaal Fellowship was launched, with an induction training programme for the first batch of 9 Misaal fellows, in Delhi, from 2-6 April, 2015.

Misaal Fellowship: Youth For Inclusive Development

Supporting young and inspired Muslim activists for rights and justice of all excluded, and nation-building.

Aman Biradari – Centre for Equity Studies, New Delhi

With

Action Aid India, Lucknow Regional OfficeAman Trust, New Delhi

Al Khair Trust, Patna, BiharHashiya, New Delhi

Hassan Educational & Welfare Trust, Madhubani, BiharSocial Development Foundation, New Delhi

A five-day induction training program for the first batch of Misaal fellows has just concluded successfully. The induction programme was intended to launch the Misaal fellowship, and particularly to provide participants, all Misaal fellows, intensive training in the range of concepts, laws and schemes, and procedures and capacities, besides helpful tools required of activist and grassroots organisations working for community mobilization and advocacy for poor Muslims and other excluded groups.

Objectives: These were multiple:

1. To introduce the idea behind the Misaal Fellowship

2. To introduce themes and concepts relevant to the working of grassroots organizations.

3. To equip the participants with an understanding of social justice issues and social security laws, programs and schemes, besides a familiarization of skills, capacities and tools required to plan, implement and manage interventions around community mobilization and advocacy for rights of communities that the fellows work with.

4. Expose participants to the work of CBOs working on similar themes, including an understanding of the challenges that CBOs face in the areas and their learnings from the work.

5. Help the fellows prioritise their plans for working with the community, going forward, and develop a work plan to guide their work in their particular contexts.

6. To structure a resource centre for the fellows to access as handholding support for their work, including through a mix of physical/face to face and Internet-based interactions.

The Participants

Participants comprised a group of 9 activists/local youth leaders, identified as the first batch of Misaal fellows, drawn from minority concentrated districts of U.P, Bihar and Delhi. All fellows are either grassroots workers in their own right, or are associated with grassroots organizations in various capacities and working on issues ranging from education, women’s rights, communal harmony and film-based activism. Table below (page 4) provides a snapshot of the fellows, and the context of their current work.

Sessions and Outcomes

Day 1: Introductory Session

The Misaal Team welcomed the participants and explained the concept of Misaal Fellowship and provided an overview of its design and operationalisation concerns, and discussed the broader goals of this project. The fellows introduced themselves and described in detail their main domain of work, the locale and their target group. They also shared their expectations form the five-day engagement and shared specific concerns.

Thematic Session 1: Concepts and Fundamentals

Concepts and fundamentals underpinning Misaal formed the topics of discussions in the first thematic session. The first subject of discussion was Democracy, and its application in the context of rights and justice for citizens. Leading on from this discussion was that of the notions of social Justice, and how that is a core tenet of a democratic state. The resource person for the session was Manoj Jha, of Delhi University. Other issues discussed were Pluralism (facilitated by Harsh Mander, Aman Biradari) as defined in the Constitutions and ways to achieve that through social change. The subsequent session, led by Minority rights activist John Dayal, sought to connect the theoretical understanding of Minority Rights with the practical aspects of leveraging those for the purpose of Social Justice. The last session of the day, on gender justice, led by Ghazala Jamil, JNU, sought to provide the fellows an introduction to gender issues and perspectives.

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Day 2: Thematic Session 2 - Legislations and Schemes

The second day was devoted to an introduction to laws, programmes and schemes of relevance to minorities, particularly Muslim groups. The first session, on Laws (civil rights) was led by civil rights activists, Ravi Nair and Siddharth Sharma. This was followed by session on cultural personal laws, facilitated by Tahmina Lashkar of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. Laws were followed by a rendition of programmes and schemes, generic as well as Minority / Muslim specific, both led by Jawed Khan of Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA).

Day 3: Processes, Systems and capacities

The third day was designed to provide participants an exposure to practical tools and guides for work planning and implementation of interventions working with poor communities. The first session, on need assessment, led by Gaurav Singh of CBGA, emphasized the participatory manner of identifying needs. This was followed by discussions on the importance of planning and identifying resources available to carry out the selected interventions. For understanding the application of advocacy with state and non-state actors for social justice and other interventions, Akram Akhtar of Afkar India, illustrated the process followed in advocacy in Muzafarnagar post-communal violence context. There was also film shows on relevant themes.

The session on Community mobilization was led by Madhu Bala and Praveena from Jagori. The following session, on set up of grassroots organisations, and the legal and other processes to watch out for was led by Jamal Kidwai of Aman Trust. The sessions on documentation and media engagement were led by by Ghazala Jamil, JNU and Iqbal Ahmed, BBC, respectively. Whilst the former provided an understanding of documentation techniques and use of tools, the latter explained how to take the help of media as a tool for advocacy and mobilization.

The last session of the day involved discussions on art, as tool for mobilizing and communicating with audiences. The resource persons, Zeba Rizvi of Arpan and Reena Pathickal led the discussions on using grass-roots comics for educating communities; street-art for advocacy; and progressive songs and poetry alongside visual arts for reaching out to the target communities, among others. The day

concluded with interaction of the fellows with Osama Manzar, Digital Empowerment Foundation, who spoke of the various possibilities to use Internet for supporting the empowerment of marginalized communities, and how fellows could make use of the potentials there.

Day 4: Study trip to Kandhla

A study trip to Kandhla, Shamli district was conducted to provide the fellows an exposure to the working of Afkar India Foundation, a grassroots organization working with victims of communal violence of 2013, to help them with justice and peace-building. Afkar was chosen for the study, as Afkar itself had come up as a grounded grassroots organisation, due to the concentrated handholding support provided by a platform of national and state level civil society organisations and donors, under the aegis of Muzaffarnagar Adhikar Jan Manch (MAJMA), led by Aman Biradari. The trip provided the fellows a fist hand account of the challenges and possibilities of activism for rights and justice.

Day 5: Work Plan Development

The final day was designed to enable fellows to reflect on their learnings, and to use those to develop their individual annual work plans, as guide for carrying out specific interventions in their communities. Fellows identified and prioritised a shortlist of the most appropriate interventions they wanted to try out on their return to their field; and an estimation of the resources and challenges anticipated in implementing those. These were drawn up as work plans that the later presented before a panel of experts, comprised of senior academics, activists, researchers, social enterprise leaders and business professionals. (Table below)

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Fellows’ personalized work plans

Fellow Location Initiation Intended are of work

Activities Resources Required

Anjar Bhajanpuri

Forbesganj block, Araria district, Bihar

SURV

EY/N

EED

ASSE

SSM

ENT

-2 W

EEK

TO 1

MO

NTH

1. Justice for frobesganj victims

Legal process, social justice, advocacy, dialogues

Funds, volunteers, computer + internet2. Food Security Availing food security

schemesMeraj Ahmed

Phulwarisharif, Patna, Bihar

1. Elementary Education

Generating Volunteer Teachers, looking into the issues of Drop outs

Volunteers, Funds, Computer +Internet2.Women

EmpowermentGenerating Livelihood;Conducting Dialogues

Md. Mahmood

Bhagalpur, Bihar 1.Communal Harmony

Dialogues with communities

Volunteers, Funds, Computer +Internet

2. Enrolment of children aged 5-8 in schools

Dialogues with children, families

Najmul Hafiz

Kaluahi block, Madhubani district, Bihar

1. Elementary Education

Formation of Team comprising of Families of children + other stakeholders

Funds

2.Women Empowerment (Muslim Women )

Livelihood generation

Naved Azam

Seelampur, North East Delhi

Legal Justice for Missing persons

Advocacy, legal process Funds

Rubina Parveen

Fatehpur Town, Fatehpur district, U.P

1. Food Security (PDS)

Monthly Meetings with the community;Dialogues with the distributors , organize camps

Financial Resources, Stationery, Volunteers, Legal aid

2. Education, gender Justice (working with Muslim Women)

Legal: CampaignInformation on lawSocial: dialogues with the women

Salim Kandhla block, Shamli district, U.P

1.Women Empowerment

SHG/Livelihood generation

Office structure, Financial resources

2. Elementary Education (Muslim Children/drop-outs)

Dialogues with stakeholders, Prabhat rally campaign

Resources,volunteers

Shah Alam Auriya district, U.P

1.Elementary Education

Meetings with families of drop-outs

ComputerPrinter CameraStationeryCycle2. Public Distribution

SystemDialogues with Officials, generate a group of volunteers, RTIs

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Zuhaib Khan

Bareilly district, U.P

1. Violence against women

advocacy for activating women help-lines; financial help for women who are victims

Financial resources and legal aid

2. Dalit /Muslim discrimination

Dialogues with various communities

The Way Ahead

The induction training programme proved to be a useful platform for launching the Misaal Fellowship and equipping the fellows with essential skills to begin planning and implementing practical steps in their particular communities. The training program also became a space for discussion on the practical aspects of the Misaal fellowship program, including identifying mentoring plans, resource center set up, mentoring and handholding visits by Misaal Team for guiding the fellows, facilitating the development of resource material and training modules for the fellows, as well as development of a website as platform for communicating the Misaal idea to the wider world, besides a portal, for two-way communication between the National Resource Centre and Fellows.

Going forward, fellows will use their personalized workplans to plan and roll out their preferred interventions, working with their communities. The National Resource Centre is committing to provide continual handholding support to the fellows, at every stage of the workplan process, through cross visits to the sites, every 5-6 weeks, besides online support, using the Misaal website cum portal, now in the process of set up. A first collective review-cum reflection workshop, brining together all fellows and resource persons, is planned in end-July 15. This process will be continued into the following months.

Misaal Fellowship Programme: Youth For Inclusive Development

Aman Biradari - Centre for Equity Studies 105/6 A Adhchini, Aurobindo Marg, New Delhi – 110 017

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