novembernewsletter

A Communications Initiative for a Balanced, Planned and Stable Population

The third Gender and Media Workshop was organized at Patna covering the Eastern Region after the Western and Southern regions which were held in Mumbai and Hyderabad respectively. The Workshop was organized by Population First in collaboration with Information and Public Relations department-Govt. of Bihar and Jagran Pehel. It was held on 8th and 9th of November-2011 and about 25 participants from two states, namely, West Bengal and Bihar, attended the Workshop. Objective of the Workshop was to provide an opportunity to the media persons to explore the gender underpinnings of issues related to education, health, violence, etc and to provide them the necessary conceptual framework and tools to analyze news and events from a gender perspective.

The “Gender based violence” session was taken by Ms. Subhraja Singh, State Program Co-ordinator, Mahila Samakhya. She highlighted the fact that, rural women are not even aware about what kind of activities and atrocities would be categorized as violence. They consider these as normal occurrences in families. The second day started with the session on “Gender and Health” by Dr. Nilesh Deshpandey, State representative, UNFPA. In his presentation he spoke about how gender gap in health is closely linked to overall socio-economic status of women in the society.

The next session was on “Gender, Livelihood and Inclusion” by Mr. Arvind Chaudhary, IAS, Executive Director, JEEVIKA. During his presentation he highlighted the prevailing situationwherein

E-newsletter November 2011

A Communications Initiative for a Balanced, Planned and Stable Population

	Gender and Media Workshop- Media key to bridge gender gap
			The third Gender and Media Workshop was organized at Patna covering the Eastern Region after the Western and Southern regions which were held in Mumbai and Hyderabad respectively. The Workshop was organized by Population First in collaboration with Information and Public Relations department-Govt. of Bihar and Jagran Pehel. It was held on 8th and 9th of November-2011 and about 25 participants from two states, namely, West Bengal and Bihar, attended the Workshop. Objective of the Workshop was to provide an opportunity to the media persons to explore the gender underpinnings of issues related to education, health, violence, etc and to provide them the necessary conceptual framework and tools to analyze news and events from a gender perspective.
	Mr.Rajesh Bhushan, Principal Secretary of Information and Public Relations department, in his welcome speech, emphasized the need for proper portrayal of women in media and to consider gender equality as not only the concern of women but the concern of all citizens. Director of Population First, Dr. Sharada said that all the rights granted under the Indian Constitution should be made available to women. She said media, as an important stakeholder, should accept and appreciate the gender equality norms and the same should get reflected in their news coverage. Mr. Anand Madhab, National Head, Jagran Pehel described the workshop as interactive and activity based with presentations followed by panel discussions and group work. He said, NGO representatives, senior media persons and Government representatives have been brought together to enrich the discussion and interactions during the workshop. Delivering the Keynote Address, senior Resident Editor of Hindustan Times, Mr.Mammen Mathew, said that journalists should be encouraged to write women centric articles to draw policy makers’ attention and at the same time women must not be excluded from gender related planning.
	The second Keynote Address was by, Rukmini Banerjee of Pratham an NGO working on education issues. She said that Bihar has certainly witnessed a significant improvement in the field of education in the last six-seven years. She, however, said that discrimination against girl child still continues in most of the families in the state. The “Gender Patriarchy “session was taken jointly by Dr. Renu Ranjan, HoD, Department of Sociology, Magadh Mahila College, and Dr. Shefali Roy, Associate Professor, Patna Women’s College. They discussed the historical context of patriarchal social construct and its close correlation with economic resource access dimensions, which reflects the restriction of mobility of females in the society and deprives them of economic independence. The “Gender and Sex Selection” session was taken by Dr. N.K. Mishra, State Program officer, State Health Society, GoB. He spoke about legal provisions and effective measures to address the issues of sex selection. Dr. A.L. Sharada stressed that sensitization of the Medical Fraternity could be one of the approaches to address this problem but everyone including media needs to play a role in curbing this problem. Dr. Varsha Singh, Consultant RCH II, NRHM, in her brief talk highlighted the reasons for sex selection in the existing society.
	The “Gender based violence” session was taken by Ms. Subhraja Singh, State Program Co-ordinator, Mahila Samakhya. She highlighted the fact that, rural women are not even aware about what kind of activities and atrocities would be categorized as violence. They consider these as normal occurrences in families. The second day started with the session on “Gender and Health” by Dr. Nilesh Deshpandey, State representative, UNFPA. In his presentation he spoke about how gender gap in health is closely linked to overall socio-economic status of women in the society. The next session was on “Gender, Livelihood and Inclusion” by Mr. Arvind Chaudhary, IAS, Executive Director, JEEVIKA. During his presentation he highlighted the prevailing situationwherein

	men have dominance in the field of agriculture and have better reach to market & other resources whereas women have always been prohibited from engaging themselves in resource generation part of agriculture. He spoke about their interventions at grassroots level with women SHGs and shared the success stories. The next presentation was on “Gender, Livelihood and Inclusion” by Dr. Sarita Singh, Consultant, Department of HRD, Government of Bihar, wherein she highlighted that Gender equality does not mean de-prioritizing men; rather it is intended to prioritize women’s concern to create an equal opportunity for both. The last session was the Panel Discussion on the topic “Gender and Media – Reporting through Gender Lenses” with the leading media practitioners from the state. Mr. Manjul Bharadwaj facilitated the panel discussion. First panelist Mr. Raghvendra Dubey, Sr. Journalist from Dainik Jagran deliberated upon social dimensions attached to Gender disparity and the evolution of the concept of Gender in our society. Second panelist Mr. Manikant Thakur, Special Correspondent BBC, brought into discussion the changing scenario in the media world. Last panelist Ms. Nivedita Jha, Sr. Journalist, Nai Duniya, shared her personal experiences as a woman journalist within a media organization and outside the organization. Taking this discussion forward Dr. A.L. Sharada, Director, Population First, said advertising is an important aspect of today’s media world and if it changes for a better gender portrayal it will definitely lead to larger change. The Workshop also had short duration interactive sessions by Manjul Bharadwaj of ETF Foundation, in between during the two day workshop which maintained the high level of interaction and involvement of the participants throughout the Workshop.
	Population First Participated in Vatsalya Mela, New Delhi

	From November 14^th to 19^th, Vatsalya Mela 2011 was organized by Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India at Dilli Haat, New Delhi. This year the theme was threefold and included awareness on Malnutrition, Declining Child sex-ratio and Empowerment of Adolescent Girls. Population first was invited by the Ministry to participate in the Mela and was allotted a stall to exhibit and display communication material and merchandise, to spread awareness about the declining child sex-ratio. Approximately 150 visitors visited Population First’s stall every day and discussed about the issue at length. Amongst these visitors there were many who did not know the severity of the issue and were shocked when the data was shared with them regarding the elimination of 1600 female fetuses everyday. Signatures were also collected from the visitors in support of the Laadli campaign.


	Balmelava – More than 500 School Children Participated
	BAL MELAVA was organized by Population First on Friday, 25th Nov 2011 at Chiravli Village in Shahapur Block of Thane District. Around 500 school children from our intervention area assembled to celebrate Children’s Day and Child Rights Day. These children have been actively involved in the SID (School in Development) Project under AMCHI (Action for Mobilization of Community Health Initiatives) program, which is conducted for Zilla Parishad schools. Under this program school children are trained as Health Messengers to bring about behavior change in health, sanitation and development issues in their schools, families and communities. On this occasion cultural programs were performed by school children under various categories such as group dance/solo dance/solo and group songs and the best performances were judged by a panel of three judges and were awarded prizes. Different stalls were put up to give information about health, hygiene and sanitation issues. Games and interactive programs were also organized which became major attractions for the school children as the winners took back home small gifts. A Health check up camp was organized in collaboration with the Government Dental College and protein powder was distributed to all the school children by an NGO Americares.


		Contact Us Population First, 3rd floor, Shetty House, 101 M.G. Road, Mumbai 400 001, India Tel: 91 22 2262 6672 / 76 Fax: 91 22 2270 2217 Email: info@populationfirst.org , Website: www.populationfirst.org