MONTHLY WORKSHOPS

Tuesday, September 2, 2008, 5.00pm to 7.00pm, at Open Space
Welcome to PUNE FIRST!

Pune city, the erstwhile ‘pensioner’s paradise’ has over the years rapidly 
transformed into a bustling mega city. There is rapid change to be seen 
everywhere. Be it the city’s roads, its educational institutions, the IT boom, 
the building industry, the cosmopolitan profile of its people, there is a 
‘work in progress’ board to be seen everywhere!

To address some of these concerns, Open Space has initiated a series of six monthly workshops titled, ‘Pune First’ that are intended to bring the city’s Gen Next, face-to-face with the rapidly changing face of Pune city. Through guided lectures and interaction by city-based experts in the fields of geography, heritage conservation, town planning, air pollution, sociology and urban planning, the workshop will enable young people to get to know Pune, walk its streets, talk to its people, measure its pollution, count its trees and report on its history, heritage and environment. 

Workshop on Town Planning!
If Pune has degenerated from a once leafy town, to the present day, ugly mega city, it is the direct result of a complete lack of town planning. We are increasingly losing our green cover, living in concrete jungles with related problems like bumper-to-bumper traffic, air and dust pollution and a high rate of accidents. We find ourselves in this mess, primarily because the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), the city’s civic body has managed to implement only 50 per cent of its 1987 development plan (DP) and the 2007 DP is yet to see the light of day!

As a part of Open Space’s, six-part series titled ‘Pune First’, Town Planner Sadhana Naik, deputy director, town planning, Government of Maharasahtra will explain why Pune’s record is so abysmal in this crucial area of work in a workshop scheduled for Tuesday, September 2, 2008.

Open Space has been exposing Pune’s youngsters to areas like history, heritage, air pollution, biodiversity, town planning and sociology over six separate, ‘Pune First’ monthly workshops.

Sadhana will guide youngsters through the following aspects of town planning in her presentation:

The workshop will be followed by a week-long project on the following topic in which student volunteers will take part…

Student project:

Besides writing a project report, the volunteers will also be encouraged to write a newspaper report for a leading city based national daily. 

Other experts like Dr Sundeep Salvi, pollution expert, will speak on air pollution and sociologist, Prof Shruti Tambe, will speak on the changing face of the Pune’s population in subsequent ‘Pune First’ lectures.

City based freelance journalist and Lead Fellow, Rahul Chandawarkar is facilitating the ‘Pune First’ workshops. 

Day & Date: Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Time: 5 pm to 7 pm
Venue: Open Space, B-301, 2nd floor, Kanchanjunga Bldg, Kanchangalli,
Off Law college road (near Krishna Dining Hall), Pune 411 004 Tel No: 020-25457371

For details: contact Renu Iyer at renu@openspaceindia.org

All ‘Pune First’ workshops are held at Open Space. There is no registration fee. 
Entry is free on a first-come-first-served basis only!

Monday – Tuesday, September 22 - 23, 2008, 5pm to 7pm, at Open Space

Gender roles and relationships are changing, evolving and expanding every day. Open Space’s monthly workshop forum , ‘Let’s Talk’ will engage participants through talks, lectures, discussions, interactive games, film screenings, theatre, campaigns and field visits, to arrive at a personal as well as political understanding of gender, sexuality, masculinities, rights and associated issues.

‘Let’s Talk’ is a workshop platform as well as an informal meeting forum for college students and working professionals to exchange ideas and share experiences.

As part of this series a workshop on ‘Relationships and Sexuality’ is planned on September 22nd and 23rd.  The workshop will try to explore the concept and dimensions of relationships in the context of the contemporary times, socio-economic changes, pace, space and ideas about relationships, while also trying to explore the grey areas vis-à-vis relationships and power, gender, sexuality and violence.

The monthly workshop series is anchored by Anand Pawar, director SAMYAK. A trained social worker, Anand is a young man with extensive experience of working with various age-groups as a trainer on issues related to gender, sexuality and masculinities.

Every workshop comprises of 2 sessions over 2 consecutive days; an input session followed by an activity session.

The first session will be held on Monday, September 22, 2008, 5.00pm to 7.00pm

Session 01: Relationships and Sexuality

This session will equip the participant with:

• A collective understanding of the term ‘relationship’ and different meanings and dimensions to it.
• An understanding of relationships in the context of sexuality, power relations, gender.

Facilitators: Lata P. M. and Anand Pawar

Lata P. M. is a social worker and has worked on women’s issues and environment issues.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008, 5.00pm to 7.00pm

Session 2: Film Screening and Discussion

Screening of film If These Walls Could Talk 2 followed by discussion.

Facilitators: Ketaki Ranade and Anand Pawar

Ketaki Ranade, an expert in the field of mental health works with bapu Trust, Pune.

There is no registration fee for these workshops and entry is free on a first-come-first-served-basis only!

Day & Date: Monday – Tuesday, September 22 - 23, 2008
Time: 5.00pm to 7.00pm
Venue: Open Space, B-301, 2nd Floor, Kanchanjunga Bldg, Kanchan Lane, Off Law College Road (near Krishna Dining Hall), Pune 411 004. Tel No: 020 25457371)

FILM FESTIVAL

Monday – Tuesday, September 22 - 23, 2008, 10.30am to 4.00pm, at the Symbiosis Society’s Law College auditorium, Senapati Bapat Road, Pune 411

ON THE MOVE: A 2-day Symposium of documentary films and discussions on ‘Migration and Displacement’

Films curated by Oishik Sircar, human rights lawyer and researcher.

Fragmented transitions between tradition and modernity, have been witness to confrontations on what constitutes development, access to resources, dispossession and enrichment impacting moving populations through the ages.

Open Space in collaboration with the Symbiosis Society’s Law College (SSLC), Pune, invites you to a 2-day symposium of documentary films and discussions titled, ‘On the Move’ on issues related to migration and displacement.

The award winning documentary films and discussions would examine whether the equations are more complicated: can there be empowering outcomes of displacement?

Day 1: Memory and Belonging

10.30am to 11.00am: Introduction to the film festival
11.00am to 12.00pm: Film screening

WHEN STRANGERS RE-UNITE
Dirs.: Marie Boti and Florchita Bautista/ Canada and Phillipines/ 52 mins/ 1999
When Strangers Re-Unite, an exploration of how Filipino families, separated by the international labour market, struggle to rebuild their lives together. Over eight million Filipinos, mostly women, have left their country to find work. Professionals in the Philippines, they make up the majority of Canada's domestic workers. Canada is a much desired destination, being the only country where these migrant workers can apply for immigrant status. Yet the process is long and rife with bureaucratic obstacles. Many dream of the day when their families can join them here. But these long anticipated reunions are often painful and difficult. Charting the progress of three families as they seek help from the Filipino community, the film offers a portrait of the effect of labour migration on people's lives.

12.00pm to 12.30pm: Discussion moderated by Oishik

1.10pm to 2.40pm: Film screening

IN THIS WORLD
Dir. Michael Winterbottom/United Kingdom/ 90 mins/ 2002
In this astonishingly beautiful and moving road movie about two displaced Afghan men who risk their lives to get from Pakistan to London, the director reveals an acute understanding of the differences as well as the overlap between political and economic freedom. In conversation, he makes a case for refugees to have the right to work in wealthier countries, make money, and send some of it home -- a logical alternative to vast amounts of foreign aid.

2.45pm to 4.00pm: Open discussion moderated by Oishik

Day 2: Borders and Others

10.30am to 11.15am: Film screening

BEING OSAMA
Dirs. Tim Schwab and Mahmoud Kaabour/Canada/ 42 mins/ 2004

Being Osama opens a window onto the lives of six Montréalers named Osama. Through an exploration of the interior and emotional lives of these subjects, the film connects the experiences of these individual Arab-Canadians to those of their own larger cultural community and to Canadian society as a whole, seen against the backdrop of continuing conflict and suspicion between the West and the Arab/Islamic world. By turns lyrical, observational, impressionistic, and factual, Being Osama, is an intimate exploration of six people highly diverse in their backgrounds, interests, and personalities, united by their first name and by their experience as Arabs living in Canada in the post-9/11 world.

11.15am to 12.00pm: Discussion moderated by Oishik

12.40pm to 1.50pm: Film screening

MOJADOS: THROUGH THE NIGHT
Dir. Tommy Davis/USA and Mexico/ 65 mins/ 2004

Mojados: Through the Night is an eye-opening documentary filmed over the course of ten days that follows four men into the desperate world of illegal immigration. Alongside Bear, Tiger, Handsome, and Old Man, director Tommy Davis takes a 120 mile cross-desert journey that has been traveled innumerable times by nameless immigrants who – like these four young migrants from Michoacan, Mexico – all had the simple, American dream for a better future. Davis brings to life the often unheard hopes and stories of these migrants as their dehydrated days evading the U.S. Border Patrol turn into sub-zero nights filled with barbed wire, brutal storms and the ever-present confrontation with death that is reality for the tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who make a similar journey into the United States every year.

1.50pm to 2.20pm: Discussion moderated by Oishik

2.20pm to 3.20pm: Film screening

Displaced Development

REFUGEES OF THE BLUE PLANET
Hélène Choquette and Jean-Philippe Duval/Canada and France/ 54 mins/ 2006
Refugees of the Blue Planet unveils the way widespread destruction from more frequently-occurring natural disasters has caused the number of environmental refugees (25 million) to outnumber - for the first time in history - those fleeing from war or political persecution (23 million).  Environmental refugees are constantly growing in number and often have no legal status, even though their right to a clean and sustainable environment has been violated.

3.20pm to 4.00pm: Open discussion moderated by Oishik

ENTRY FREE ON A FIRST-COME-FIRST-SERVE-BASIS ONLY!