SEMINAR

Saturday, July 7, 2007, 3.00pm – 7.00pm, at Open Space
Do you have questions about HIV? Do you need an informed opinion on how to avoid transmission of HIV, or what tests and treatments are available and where they are available? What are the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS and how can the law be used to address discrimination against the HIV-positive? Do you want to know how to address the subject of HIV with your children/students?

Open Space and a young team of human rights lawyers and counselors from Sahyog Trust, Pune, have initiated an HIV Information helpline to address your queries. The helpline services will be available on alternate Saturdays of every month.

The Sahyog Trust strives to break the culture of silence surrounding HIV, works to protect the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS, and provides legal intervention for those whose rights have been violated.

The team comprises:

Advocate Asim Sarode, whose innovative work with HIV/AIDS and the law won him recognition from BBC as a ‘Yuva Star’. He is also a member of the Community Advisory Board of the National AIDS Research Institute.

Advocate Rama Sarode, who has been a trainer with organisations working with HIV, and has been working with legal issues related to women’s rights and the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS

Rasika Kulkarni, former HIV/AIDS counselor with Sassoon Hospital, Pune, and the PMC’s Pune City AIDS Control Society.

Please walk in with your queries. Confidentiality of personal information is assured. Questions will also be taken on the telephone during these hours. Call 020-25457371.

Day & Date: Saturday, July 7, 2007
Time: 3.00pm to 7.00pm
Venue: Open Space office

Friday - Saturday, July 20 - 21, 2007, 10.00am - 2.30pm, at Patrakar Bhawan

Approaches to Sex and Sexuality Education in Pune: A review of School Programmes and NGO Initiatives

A 2 day seminar organized by Open Space and coordinated by Anand Pawar, researcher and trainer

The recent ban on sex education in schools in Maharashtra by the state government and nationwide reactions of religious extremist groups to the syllabus developed and included in CBSE board schools has come as a deplorable surprise to many organizations, institutions and experts in this field. In the context of the growing exposure of children to media and pornography increasing their vulnerability to undeveloped knowledge and threats to HIV infection, there is an increased need for sex education.

Sex education is always seen as threat to ‘Indian culture’ in which children are sexually abused in different settings. Recent study on child sexual abuse in India acknowledges that child sex abuse takes place in schools. It reports that one out of every two children have faced sexual abuse. And overall, more boys than girls face various forms of sexual abuse ranging from inappropriate touch, exposure to pornography or violent sexual assault. This shows that need for sex and sexuality education goes beyond just knowing your bodies and understanding reproductive organs and functions and threats associated with that. Government, schools and families not having concern over sex and sexuality awareness puts several children in vulnerable situations. There is also no clarity about whom to approach – the school, the counselor, doctors or the police – if children have been abused in school. An urgent call for larger debate and dialogue on the need, approaches, appropriate language, tools and materials for sex education for children is required. Channels of dialogue have to be clearly opened among families, schools, and government and also with children.

The objective of this 2 day seminar is to take a fresh stock of work around sex and sexuality education in different settings like schools, community and counseling centers in Pune. There is a need to review what is being offered as content of sex education, different approaches, tools and materials. This would help to generate public debate on the topic that is felt important and less talked of and it would also help to facilitate the process towards building a common perspective on sexuality education among Pune community, especially schools and NGOs.

SEMINAR SCHEDULE

DAY 1
FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2007, 10.00AM – 2.30PM, AT PATRAKAR BHAWAN

10.00am – 10.30am: Registration, Welcome and Tea

10.30am – 10.50am: Introductory Presentation by Anand Pawar
Context and Objectives: To examine the various approaches to sex and sexuality education undertaken by school programmes and NGO initiatives in Pune.

10.50am – 12.10pm: School-based awareness programmes on sex and sexuality education

Presentations By:

Sonal Bawadekar: Dr Kalmadi Shamarao High School, Pune
Dilmeher Bharucha Bhola and Nivedita Krishnaswamy: Revachand Bhojwani Academy, Pune
Dr. Anagha Lawalekar: Dnyana Prabodhini, Pune
Dr. Shakuntala Kale: Education Office, Secondary and technical,
PMC, Pune

Presentations will discuss and outline the modes and approaches used to conduct awareness programmes with emphasis on the tools and aids used in classroom activities such as audio-visual material, charts, demos,
terminologies etc.

Panel Discussion: 12.10pm – 1.00pm
Panel Discussants:
Dr. Anant Sathe, Lakshmi Kumar, Bindumadhav Khire

Moderator:
Bindu Madhav Khire

1.00pm – 1.30pm: Snack break

1.30pm – 2.30pm: Adolescent Education/Life Skills/RCH Approach programmes undertaken by NGOs

Dr. Nandita Kapadia Kundu, Institute of Health Management Pachod (IHMP), Pune
Dr. Vivek Bilampalli, Family Planning Association of India, Pune

Moderator:
Anand Pawar

DAY 2
SATURDAY, JULY 21, 2007, 10.00AM – 2.30PM, AT PATRAKAR BHAWAN

10.00am – 12.00am: HIV/AIDS and sexual health / risk model approach to sex and sexuality education

Hans Billimoria, Deepgriha Society, Pune
Dr. Sanjeevani Kulkarni, Prayas, Pune
Jasmine Gogia, Project Concern International, Pune
Mathew Mattam, CYDA, Pune

Moderator:
Rama Sarode

12.00pm – 12.30pm: Snack break & Display of materials

12.30pm – 2.00pm: Gender/Body Literacy/Sexuality Approach programmes undertaken by NGOs and individuals in various communities

Alka Pawangadkar, Stree Mukti Sanghatana, Pune
Bharati Kotwal, Muskaan, Pune
Bindu Madhav Khire, Samapathik Trust, Pune

Moderator:
Ranjana Gaikwad

THEATRE

Development and Human Rights Institute (DHRI) and Open Space (OS) present
Two evenings of Third Theater Performances on July 12 and 13

Thursday, July 12, 2007, 6.00pm onwards, at Open Space

And Dead Tree Gives No Shelter - A Performance Trilogy on Identities

A solo directed and performed by Parnab Mukherjee,
Text: inspired from Mahasveta Devi and the performer
Produced by: Best of Kolkata Campus
Duration: 1 hour 10 minutes without any intermission

Synopsis:

Using site-specific installation techniques-the play weaves in real-life narratives and play with a sub-text that is testimony to the times we live in. Times around the tribal zones of the country.

Breast Giver is a text of an Adivasi woman coming to terms with reality. A reality where the body has more eyes than necessary. Is Jashoda merely a body, a mother, an idea of being oppressed or a
dream? Mahasveta Devi explores this idea in a hard-hitting short story. The director-performer does a one-woman play exploring the socio-political fabric of the circumstances in a bare space.

With myriad use of body, pitch, off-bass voice, installation, puppetry and body-as-a-live sculpture technique, this performance is specifically designed for an interactive ambience with the audience. The audience here is a reference point to bounce the script.

What emerges is a powerful production of theatre of images and a disturbing experience.
The story disturbs us. It is about exploitation of a woman. But more than that the rampant globalisation of set stereotypes. Into that realm of disturbance lies the true conscience of our social questioning.

The second story is that of a woman who becomes the "object" of a photographer's project. In the course of memory and forgetting... the photographer becomes engrossed in his life and times. When he comes back to revisit the "object" of the shoot the woman has been terribly wronged.

Using a series of performance metaphors, this short, sharp piece attempts to challenge your art-related-viewpoints. The play rips apart narrative techniques, shredding the dialectics of the diaspora and what emerges is a reaction.
The third and the last the piece is on a man on the verge of committing suicide. And on the last moment he changes his mind. This is a probe on the political and ideological loneliness that grips us.

Friday, July 13, 2007, 6.00pm onwards, at Open Space

Stroking Dead Man's Hair - A Performance Intervention

Based on two poems of Namdeo Dhasal as translated from Mararthi to English by Dilip Chitre and fragments of poems of a host of Manipuri poets including Irom Sharmila

The show will be preceeded by a screening of Thekey Pe Kya Karte Ho - a short film on child labour (Directed by Spandan Banerjee... the film celebrates and zeroes on the issue of children opening beer bottles in front of liqour shops..their earnings, dreams and aspirations)

FILM

Monday, July 23, 2007, 5.30pm to 8.00pm, at Dnyaneshwar Hall, nest to Central Office, Marathwada Mitramandal College of Commerce, next to IMDR campus, Pune

Open Space invites you to a screening of the film, INDIA UNTOUCHED- Stories of a People Apart (Dir: Stalin K)108 minutes, Hindi, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalm with English sub-titles.

Filmmaker Stalin K. will share his experiences of making the film after the screening, which will be followed by an informal discussion.

SYNOPSIS :
INDIA UNTOUCHED - Stories of a People Apart is a comprehensive look at untouchability ever portrayed on film. Director Stalin K. spent four years traveling the length and breadth of the country to expose the continued oppression of ‘Dalits,’ the ‘broken people’ who suffer under a 4000 year-old religious system. It exposes the continuation of caste practices and untouchability in Sikhism, Christianity and Islam, and even amongst the communists in Kerala. Dalits themselves are not let off the hook. Spanning eight states and four religions, “INDIA UNTOUCHED” will make it impossible for anyone to deny that untouchability continues to be practiced in India. In an age where the media projects only one image of ‘rising’ or ‘poised’ India, this film reminds us how far the country is from being an equal society. Traveling through eight states and four religions, this film is a serious exploration of caste oppression.

About Stalin K

Stalin K. is the co-founder and Director of DRISHTI Media, Arts and Human Rights and the India Director of Video Volunteers.

DRISHTI (www.drishtimedia.org) is a leading media and human rights organization in India, with 15 years experience pioneering new models of participatory media, such as street theater, community radio, campaign design, documentary filmmaking, and participatory video.

Stalin is also an internationally acclaimed documentary filmmaker and has made over a dozen documentaries and has received several national and international awards. His film, Lesser Humans, on the issue of Untouchability has been responsible for much of the international attention to Dalit issues.

He is one of the leading voices to democratize India’s airwaves and has been in the forefront of the fight for communities’ right to own and run their own radio stations. He was part of a team that set up one of the first community radio projects in India. He is the National Convener of the Community Radio Forum-India, a membership network of more than 100 organizations.