3-28 May 2010 at Visthar, Bangalore, India

We are used to thinking of development as a process of achieving poverty eradication and economic prosperity, of removing discrimination and oppression and achieving equality and the full range of human rights, and of enabling each individual in society achieve their full potential, regardless of their, gender, race , ability, class, caste, region, religion, nationality, or sexual orientation. While these are certainly the core goals of development, we forget that there are many paths to their realization – and that when we choose a path, we are actually making choices between monocultures or diversity in our approaches. (Srilatha Batliwala, 2008)

Objectives
Over the last two decades Civil Society Organizations, besides government departments and academic institutions, have been involved in and continue to facilitate gender sensitization and capacity building for mainstreaming gender in different sectors. Mostly following conceptual frames developed in the late 1980s/1990s since when issues, debates, and concepts have changed at both the international and national levels. While building on the rich experience of the past, this course aims at grappling with the emerging issues and concepts and incorporate them into our framework.

The course, accredited by XISS, aims at strengthening participants’:

• Understanding of concepts of gender, diversity and transformation in the South Asian context.
• Understanding of the recent debates on gender, third gender, masculinities, women’s rights and empowerment.
• Understanding of the implications of emerging issues like globalisation, disasters and conflicts, for gender relations and women’s rights.
• Understanding of the policies of the government and UN agencies from a gender perspective and evolve action plans to strengthen gender and diversity perspective within interventions of NGOs.
• Skills in facilitating learning events and in creative documentation.

Contents / themes
The course will have six modules.

1. Gender, social relations and social institutions

• Gender and self : Personal constructs of masculinities and femininities
• Concepts of sex and gender, gender roles and gender relations
• Patriarchy, capitalism and caste : Inter-linkages
• Frameworks and tools for gender analysis and planning
• Policy approaches to women’s development
• The social relations and institutional perspective to gender and development.
• Recent debates on concepts of gender, third gender, masculinities, women’s rights and empowerment

2. Gender, masculinities and development

• Masculinities, social relations and institutions
• Masculinity, sexuality and sexual orientation
• The ‘politics of masculinity’ and issues of power and patriarchy
• The triangulation between gender, masculinities and development
• Gender based violence and masculinities, masculinity and HIV-AIDS etc.
• Strategies to engage with men as potential agents of transformative change

3. Gender, sexuality and reproductive rights

• Sexuality, sexual and reproductive health and rights
• Social determinants of sexual and reproductive health
• Application of gender analysis and a human rights framework to sexual and reproductive health policies and programmes
• Strategies to advocate for sexual and reproductive rights at the community and state/national levels

4. Gender, poverty and rights

• Dimensions and causes of poverty
• Gender specific causes and coping strategies
• The elements of globalisation and its impact on lives and livelihood of the poor, women and other marginalized groups.
• The concept of human rights, and rights enshrined in human rights Covenants and CEDAW.
• The debates on the links (or its absence) between gender, poverty and rights.

5. Gender, disasters and conflicts

• Gender (and socially) differentiated impact of disasters and conflicts on women/men and girls/boys
• The policies of the government and UN agencies in the region on disaster and conflict/peace from a gender perspective.
• Disaster and conflict response strategies from a gender lens

6. Institutionalising gender within organizations and programmes

• Gender issues in organization
• Different elements of an organization and approaches to institutionalising gender
• Engendering organisation structure, culture and leadership
• Engendering Human Resource Development (HRD) systems
• Engendering budgeting, planning , monitoring and evaluation

Participants

The course is designed for women and men working with Government Organisations (GOs), International and national NGOs, Faith Based Organisations and other Civil Society Organisations in South Asia. Young graduates who would like to equip themselves with gender perspectives and skills are also welcome to apply. Medium of communication will be English. On completion of the course participants will be awarded a certificate from XISS, a premier institute for the study of social sciences in India.

Facilitators / Resource persons

The course will be facilitated by Ms. Mercy Kappen and Dr. David Selvaraj. The course will also draw on a panel of resource persons including Ms. Ranjani K Murthy (Independent researcher and gender specialist) Dr.Shekhar Seshadri (Child Psychiatrist ), Dr. Revathi Narayan (Gender and policy analyst) and faculty from INSA (Bangalore), XISS (Ranchi), Sangama (working on sexuality minorities) and Vimochana (forum for women’s rights). Ms. Mercy Kappen will serve as the course coordinator.

Methodology

The course will follow an action-reflection-action model (Paulo Freire). The facilitators / resource persons will build on participants own experiences and knowledge base. The methodologies will include group discussions, case studies, role plays, audio-visuals, input sessions and exposure visits. Participants will share best practices and develop plans and strategies related to each module.

Course fee and registration

The course fee for participants from India is Rs. 3,000/-(Rupees Three thousand only). Board and lodging for residential participants will be available on the campus at a subsidized rate of Rs. 9000/ (Rupees Nine thousand only) for the entire month. The fee for international participants will be $400(USD) including course fee, board and lodging. We request interested candidates to fill in the enclosed form and mail it to us before the 30th of January 2010. Modalities of payment will be informed to confirmed participants.

For further details contact :Mercy Kappen, mail@visthar.org / mercykappen@yahoo.com

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