The International Rural Network Conference, Udaipur 2009

I had the privilege last week of co-hosting the International Rural Network 2009 Conference, which, magically, was held in Udaipur this year, about 5 minutes down the road from my house. Initially I was asked whether I would like to present a paper or organise a workshop – but I wasn’t able to get much [...]

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Nagrik Diwas (Citizen’s Day) @ Delwara

Nagrik Diwas Seva Mandir’s work in Delwara is directly concerned with encouraging responsible citizenship and local self-governance. The journey so far has included an extensive range of activities with the citizens of Delwara through which Seva Mandir has sought to engage citizens in dialogue and action around issues of local importance. These issues have included [...]

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Monday & Tuesday: learning from drama and women

Monday and Tuesday were spent in Delwara, mainly working with members of the women’s group and some women’s mohalla level representatives preparing plays on stories of change. Three mohalla (neighbourhood) committees had come together – all of them amongst the poorest and traditionally most excluded sections of society: the Bhil tribals, the Bhoi (vegetable farmers), [...]

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Sunday: from riots to unity?

Meetings all day from 11am to 9pm… Lakshmi on IRN – covered ground and had a really good rice-flour chappatti with dry (south Indian) chutney… it rocked (thank you!). Then met Arvind and talked about the seminar he wants to host – nice idea but not my area of interest or capability… I agreed to [...]

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