Nestled amidst the North Eastern Himalayas, beside the Barapani lake in Shillong, the Bethel Training center was the venue of our gender sensitization workshop this week. Twenty five participants from a large faith based organisation joined the workshop. They included program managers, implementers and trainers from the North East, Jharkhand, Bihar and Delhi.
Raaj and Roshen facilitated the training. “I loved how engaged the participants were”, says Roshen. “They let themselves be challenged and so we also could gently push them further.”
The workshop started with gender sensitization on the first day. Building on that, we introduced different methods of gender analysis. Participants then learnt to apply these tools in their project design and implementation. “This is a process, we can’t make all the changes after one training” shared Raaj as the workshop concluded.
“There was no dull moment in the entire workshop. The facilitators kept us engaged throughout” says Jumaila, a project coordinator. The session on proverbs was her favourite.
The lead organizer said she would have welcomed the facilitators to challenge the patriarchy within the faith tradition even further. That feedback inspires us further as we return back to Bangalore.
