– by Deepu Kiran

Why should parents send their children to an inclusive day-care center?
If children already learn in their early childhood how important it is to face challenges and not to give up, they will be much better prepared for living an independent life and for contributing to positive changes. Thus “Adventure Wheel” was born. “Adventure” stands for excitement, and the term “wheel” symbolizes the continuity of life, and it stands for the request that we should never give up.

But the most important idea about the center is that children with and without disabilities will learn from each other. Once they are ready for school, they can speak and sing in Hindi and English, they know the alphabet, all, blind or sighted, can write basic Braille, and all, including the blind, can communicate in basic sign language. The most important quality of the adventure Wheel graduates is that they are confident and know what they want in life. Children with disabilities are not so vulnerable when teased and are not shy to ask for help if needed. And those without disabilities have learned that having a limitation always offers new opportunities.

And who wouldn’t like to have a child who is able to make responsible decisions, speak up for their or other children’s rights, help when help is needed, and is polite yet assertive? All these qualities are a good foundation for overcoming challenges and give wings for life.

I was only two years old when my father brought me to a railway station. He left me there and never returned. I must have been distracted by mice running between the tracks. Maybe, I started to play with them. An old man noticed me on the tracks as a train approached. He operated the train’s signal, and I was rescued.
I joined the Kiran Society when it was still in Nagva. However, after a few years, the founders decided to purchase a large plot of land in the village. The plot was covered with grass, and it had one water tank. Quickly, a hostel for kids with disabilities was constructed, and I moved there.

Today, Kiran society, an organization for children with disabilities, consists of a variety of structures, including classrooms, an administrative building, an orthotic department, physiotherapy facilities, a swimming pool, and a cow shed.
When I was little, I remember being sad, seeing parents of other children bringing gifts for their loved ones. I crawled away and hid under the bed. Sometimes I stopped Kaki Ma, our caretaker, from going to the store. I started to cry because I thought she would abandon me the same way my father did.

What made me angry was the pity shown to me. Some statements were making me feel not valued. “Oh, Such a beautiful girl, how could her parents throw her away!?” Or they called me “Bechari” which in Hindi means “pitiful girl.”Being little, I felt awful about these statements, but as I got older, I strongly felt that I wasn’t “bechari”! I had an excellent education, clothing to wear, food to eat, a place to live, and most importantly, I was still alive and loved!
Sangeeta, the Founder of Kiran society encouraged me to study and sent me to an English Medium School in the city. There I faced a lot of discrimination. I remember that day when I entered the gate of my school for the first time. Children and teachers stared at me, whispering to each other: “look at that LANGDI!” it means “disabled” in Hindi and is not meant in a nice way.
When I entered class three, I started having many physical barriers too, because the classroom was not on the ground level. But to go to the toilet, I needed to go back to the first floor. People had to carry me up and down. And if there was no one who wanted to help me, I couldn’t help myself and urinate in my pants. It was embarrassing, and I asked My Guardian to come back to Kiran, although they only taught in Hindi and I had worked so hard to study in English.

This experience taught me that there are two major barriers to integrating children with disabilities. Inaccessible buildings and children and teachers who are not aware of our needs. At this point, I thought I will build a place where everyone studies and plays together and children with and without disabilities help each other.
After completing high school in 2015, I went to study B.Com, (Bachelor in commerce). For this, I had to move out of Kiran Society for the first time. It was a good experience, but I was constantly scared. Just catching the train was rather dangerous because there was no fly-over to cross the tracks. With my wheelchair and with the help of a disabled friend, I could manage, always fearing that the wheels would get stuck, and the train would roll over us.
My goal was to get a well-paying job. But then Covid hit all of us, and I had time to think and to talk to Sangeeta. I understood that I needed to give thought to what I really wanted to do in life.

And here I am, going back to my childhood dream to work with disabled and non-disabled children whom I love so much.
The experiences I had in mainstream education, made me conclude that I want to open a Daycare for children with and without disabilities in which they could learn that all limitations do carry opportunities. And I knew that this place should be a call for life, full of adventures.

The post Wings to Life first appeared on kanthari.

What comes to mind if you think of a rag picker? A man, dirty, poorly clothed, roaming around to search for waste material in a pile of trash? However, in reality, most rag-pickers are women or young children who are hard-working to feed their families.

Perumugai is a small village with less than a thousand inhabitants, it is situated in Tamil Nadu, close to Vellore at the foot of a hill that has no greenery. This is the place I grew up in. My parents were daily wage workers, who despite their hard work found it difficult to make ends meet.

Due to financial constraints, after finishing higher secondary school, I was forced to work in a leather factory with a salary of 750 Rs. per month. I had to cut sheep leather into small pieces that were used to make gloves. The work was tough, my hands got calluses, I faced respiration issues, and my legs were strained by standing the whole day. This was just a regular day working at the leather factory when I was 16 years old. The working conditions sometimes let emotions come in the way of us workers, which regularly resulted in willingly damaging and wasting parts of the leather. After two years of work, using my savings and employee benefits, I was able to return to college and finish my graduation.

But again, a lack of funds stopped my post-graduate education. However, I rejoined working in the leather factory, now as an HR assistant, and on the side, I did a master’s through distance learning. In my new role as supervisor, I criticized my former colleagues who still were damaging and wasting leather. Yet, what was a waste for our company, was a resource for others. Outsiders would buy these leather scraps to make key chains, wristwatch strips, and other small-sized items. This was the birth of my passion about waste management. With my new master’s degree, I started looking to switch my career, but my efforts only got rejections as my study done through distance education was not valued.

Again, I used my savings to start another study, and for this, I did field research about how employee behavior impacts waste generation. I contacted several leather companies to get their approval. The employers said that they liked it, yet they did not allow an outsider to speak with their employees. So, this was a dead end. Eventually, the only option was to shift the target audience from employees to consumers. The study revealed insight into the attitude of people towards consumption.

In 2013, I wanted to get a job in the field of waste management. I applied to an institute that had an excellent waste management system. They, however, employed me to promote higher education projects. As part of their scholarship program, in 2018, I visited a student to verify the socio-economic status of his family. Meeting him influenced me a lot. He lost his dad, and his mother did rag-picking to provide for her family. He got the scholarship and upon graduation, got a job in the IT sector. His life significantly changed through this support, but his peers are still living a vulnerable standard of life and continue rag-picking.

From all the stages in my life, I have closely connected with the lives of rag pickers even if I am not one myself. But as I am from the same communal background, I have experienced all the circumstances of disadvantage and pain that they are facing in their life. Even today, this particular community forms 99 percent of the workforce to clean the environment in both formal and informal sectors.

I cannot create a wonder to change the life of all of them. But I believe that waste, when managed properly is a resource that plays an important role to create a sustainable future. Promoting new ways of waste management could offer livelihood opportunities for many. Therefore, I want to create dignified employment opportunities leading to a cleaner and more sustainable society.

The post waste as a resource to get dignity first appeared on kanthari.

Bibek is an intersectional Queer youth activist and proud gay man, who grew up in a supportive family. However, he witnessed the plight of the LGBTQIA+ community within the society and realized that interventions are lacking when it comes to access to mental health facilities for the senior/older members. His goal is to provide quality access to the same.

Ajay S. is a very cheerful person. He is a big fan of Bollywood movies and loves to dance to classic Bollywood songs. Since 2004, very secretly he has been involved in LGBTIQ+ program. He remembers when a few people in “Rantpark” were distributing condoms and lube and they told them about HIV and STIs. According to Ajay, at that time it was challenging to speak about gay-, lesbian-, bisexual-, or transgender- terminology openly.

Ajay grew up as a single male child in his family. Due to family pressure and expectations, he thought that every man needed to marry and have children. Because the children would be taking care of him when he gets old.

So, he got married. His wife didn’t know about his sexual orientation because Ajay has never told her. Even at that time, he didn’t think it was important to tell her. He said that he felt very selfish because he didn’t think once about women’s lives. He was just concerned about his family and taking advantage of his male privilege. Even after marriage, Ajay was still meeting with male friends. He said that during intercourse with his wife, he felt disgusted, and he frequently questioned himself about his decisions.

Once married, his daily life became very difficult because he was living two lives and it was hard to manage his true identity and his social married life. Now, he wasn’t just struggling with his wife and family, but he has many grandchildren who are frequently questioning him about his behavior. At this age, he regrets his decision. According to him he never forgave himself. Now he is doing nothing, just living at home, and sometimes secretly joining programs and meeting with other men. He said that hiding his true identity feels like he is a criminal, and this impacted both his mental and physical well-being.

Ajay’s story is only one of many lgbtqi+ members in Nepal. It is thus, that Bibek is driven to make a difference.

The post Hiding ones true identity first appeared on kanthari.

By Harriet Kamashanyu

“Uganda’s Sexual Offenses Bill, 2019 both criminalizes consensual sex acts and would allow some non-consensual acts to go unpunished.” – Human Rights Watch

The bill has been pending for more than a decade, approved by parliament on May 3, 2021 leaves a lot to be questioned about! We applaud the phenomenal women in the parliament who spearheaded the efforts making this bill a reality given the various controversies and resistance that was faced way back from 2015 it was tabled to its enactment in 2021 waiting for the approval of the president to be used as a checkmate on the injustices committed against women.

While offering provisions designed to prevent and punish sexual offences, the bill has milestones that we can celebrate from the feminist point of view in far as addressing the injustices committed on girls and women at large in the country like sexual violence, rape, defilement, sexual exploitation, child prostitution, child sex tourism, marriage involving a child that has been rampant resulting into high rates of teenage pregnancies resulting in low human capital development and increased gender inequalities. We gladly say the bill has acted as a buffer to most of the injustices committed against women especially the margins from the margins of society as they are often termed.

Despite the fact that we celebrate these milestones and victories, there is a section of marginalized women that society gives a blind eye and a deaf ear – the female sex workers who still remain as a side-lined component of women.
With the outbreak of Covid-19 and its irreversible effects on everyone, high poverty-, high unemployment levels with few social protection programs in the country forced many girls and women to join sex work so as to be able to earn a living and the fact that they do this does not make them less of women and human to enjoy the rights they are entitled to by the virtue that they are human beings.

The Bill spells out clearly on clauses like Clause 34 on False Allegations we see that most sex workers face violence at the hands of their clients which can’t be backed by evidence with the illegality and the stigma around the work making these women susceptible and exposed to violence that has been justified by the bill.

Furthermore, the bill has a Clause on Consent on the sexual act were it gives freedom a person performing a sexual act to withdraw such consent at any time to, before or during the performance of the sexual act which exposes these women to sexual exploitation and sexual violence which the bill seeks to end.

In addition to this we know that this population is termed as Most at Risk Populations (MAPs) characterized by high levels of HIV/AIDs by the virtue of the work they do however the bill calls for forceful HIV testing by sex offenders and a person involving in a sexual act when infected is liable to imprisonment of which many female sex workers fall victim. This mandatory and forced HIV testing of defendants is the highest level of human rights violation undermining the public health essential testing and treatment of HIV/AIDs prevention and treatment efforts.

This comes as a wake -up call to all the women advocates, United Nations bodies, women alliances and coalitions, health around the world to call for the revision of bill to strike a balance on all women irrespective of who they are, what they do or their sexual orientation. We are all women that deserve fair and equal treatment. The bill should be revised to ensure the intended benefits are reaped by the general public of Uganda!  *More about this here ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

** Harriet Kamashanyu is the founder of Rhythm of Life (ROL).
ROL supports sex workers in the red light area of Kabalagala – Kampala, Uganda.
Rhythm of Life’s aim is to end the stigmatization and social exclusion of sex workers in Kampala and wants to end the cycle of mother-to-daughter prostitution. They have created a sponsorship program to support the daughters in education and professional healthcare training. Most importantly, through several economic empowerment initiatives, the women will eventually be able to independently support their daughters through school. Learn more about Harriet’s inspiring work a rhythmOfLife

The post kanthari blog – Ugandas sexual offence bill first appeared on kanthari.

by Norman Manzi

A couple of years ago, Ananias Tuyisenge was doubting about his future and with mixed self-questions as a physically-disabled person he could give himself a response that ‘disability is inability!’ which is totally negative.
In July 2020, Tuyisenge was informed that there is a centre near his neighborhood in Gahanga Sector, Kicukiro District that helps youth to explore their talents and shape their future development through Art development and job creation, so, he joined and got support.

“Since I arrived here in Rwanda Nook Hub, I learned a lot of things including English language and to speak in the public and I am now here doing it, thanks to the centre to enable me explore and exercise my talents, I have learnt how to play piano and guitar and I have produced many songs which, some are on YouTube Channel.” Tuyisenge says.

Read more at http://rwandainspirer.com/2021/06/10/rwanda-nook-hub-showcases-various-youth-talents-from-self-learning/

The post kanthari blog – dream village Rwanda first appeared on kanthari.

by Ojok Simon – HIVE Uganda – founder and ceo

Just close your eyes for a minute and think about how you would farm and keep bees if you cannot see! You probably think that this is impossible… However, it works!

Digging the soil, getting dirty, practicing crop husbandry, and keeping bees are all activities that can be done by using touch, taste, and smell. And it makes up an excellent combination since agriculture and bees need each other. Beekeepers need crops with flowers for nectar to feed bees to eventually harvest honey, while flowers need pollinators, and that’s what bees do best.

In Uganda, agriculture forms the major source of employment for about 75-80% of the population.

So, you might be curious to know how blind people can keep bees?

HIVE Uganda is an organization that trains blind people in the rural community of Northern Uganda in beekeeping. They learn the basics of beekeeping, honey harvesting as well as the marketing of bees’ products. They are then given start up support to start their own bee farm at home. By selling bee products, the rural blind beekeepers get a the chance to generate their own income so they can support their families.

HIVE Uganda’s vision is to see blind and partially sighted people in rural community of East Africa becoming successful entrepreneurs. The training is used as a tool to achieve this vision.

Once a beehive has been set up, and the bees are getting busy, the beekeepers have some time on their hands. This can easily be utilized to grow crops like beans, peas, bananas among others. Let me share the story of Okello Patrick Owiyo with you. Everyone in Nwoya district knows him as Owiyo the blind beekeeper.

Six years ago, he was trained by HIVE Uganda and has since managed ten common traditional Ugandan beehives. Over the years he received some more training and with gained experience he was able to run his bee farm well. He has good mobility and orientation skills and has the courage to move about without his white cane snapping his fingers using sound as his guide while moving along narrow foot pathways leading to his garden.

Walking to the field of his bee farm, Owiyo realized that there is plenty of agricultural fertile land that his family was not utilizing. With his bee hive being close by he decided to use part of the land for crop production. Each year he has grown maize, beans, peas, and groundnuts on a total are of 3 to 4 acres of land. Currently, Owiyo is harvesting his groundnuts. An important part of the training is to feel leaves of the different plants so every blind farmer can detect which plant is part of the crop and which is part of weeds that need to be removed.

In Uganda, like in many other countries, disabled and blind people are seen as a burden for society. The blind face stigmatization and discrimination. However, combining beekeeping with crop growing, Owiyo has been able to increase income from earning less than $200 per year to $1200+ per year. There is sufficient food for his family, and he can meet other basic needs like buying clothes, medical care, and shelter.
Over the years, Owiyo’s self-confidence has grown significantly, but not only that, the main success lies in a mindset change of the public, who now shows respect to Owiyo and other blind entrepreneurs.

There are many blind people in Uganda who did not have a chance like Owiyo had, so therefore Hive Uganda continues its mission!

More information can be found on http://www.hiveuganda.org/

The post kanthari blog – Farming Blind, Honey! first appeared on kanthari.

By Trevor Molife – Purple Africa – Zimbabwe

“Rume rimwe harikombi churu” This is a famous proverb in my home language of Shona, the proverb is translated as, “A single person, no matter how big, does not encircle an anthill alone”. This is the same with social change and any kind of work that one needs to tackle with the hope of bringing about positive impact. Impact is almost impossible to achieve without working together with others.

This takes me back to the time after I had finished the kanthari course. Upon return to Zimbabwe, I was excited to kickstart Purple Hand Africa, realizing my dream to bring about a positive change for the LGBTQI+ community. My end goal was and still is to finally see the LGBTQI+ Zimbabweans becoming contributing citizens that can effect change in all strata of society. This felt like an uphill task I could not manage on my own without getting much engagement from the other organisations already working in the field or community members themselves.

I identify as a gay man and having a few friends that knew others was a good start, but not knowing what others where already doing was going to throw me into the red ocean. My worst fear was coming into the field replicating what was already being done by other activists and organisations, which at the end of the day yields competition instead of collaboration. Hence my first steps had me seeking partnerships with the likes of GALZ (An Association for LGBT people in Zimbabwe), Writers’ Cafe and Trans and Intersex Rising Zimbabwe (TIRZ). These organisations are more community orientated, which helped in getting participants for the project as well as getting a clearer idea of what was already happening on the ground and which gaps existed in service provision.

I am happy to have a backing of other kantharis. There is Gumisayi Bonzo who also runs an organisation that works with trans people in Zimbabwe, called TransSmart. And there is Arthanas, who despite not working with the community offered to come in as a facilitator for some of our sessions. These first steps helped in getting Purple Hand Africa to run its first successful Community Art Workshop. This was a fruitful step as it opened the doors for more partnerships that helped in seeing the project having a nationwide reach, towards covering the gap of mental wellness service provision for the LGBTQI+ community. The steps we could not have managed to walk if we had tried to do it on our own.

Through friendships built with allies from the mainstream community we expanded our activities to also include storytelling. This was after our interaction with Vera, who is the Community Manager of Moto Republik. She told us about their ZW9 Accelerator program, which we took our chance in applying for. These are some of the opportunities that would have fallen by our wayside if we had remained in our own shell. Succeeding in this application then helped us to kickstart our storytelling project which is giving power to LGBTQI+ people to own our narrative and have the power to tell our own stories in our own voices, moving away from others speaking on our behalf.

In these times of corona, life has changed from the normal. Funding streams have suddenly turned towards only providing for emergency relief. Big funders have also started giving more to coalitions as they tend to cover more gaps than organisations working in silos, hence in these times we need each other to encircle this anthill of covid.

In such times, collaborating with partnerships within mainstream non-profits has been of an immense assistance to us. This has been translated in our partnership with the likes of Dragonflies Everywhere who assists us with access to experts for program design and facilitation for our workshops with follow through one-on-one coaching support for participants in our programs. This has helped our participants to deal with the unique challenges encountered by a marginalised person during the lockdown. We also have a great network kantharis who are working on diverse issues, whom we continue to call upon for support and knowledge sharing where we might fall short. In these changing times I have learnt that collaborations bring about greater impact and change that is much needed in this world of social change.

During this collaboration jouney, Purple Hand Africa has gained a diverse group of participants in our projects, whose lives continue to be enriched uniquely and holistically through the diverse professionals we collaborate with. It is interesting how through this experience we have also been helped to design projects with an end to end impact and now we have even introduced Personal Development Plans for our participants who are bound to find relevant mentorship and follow through towards achieving their individual life goals from our large network of collaborators, which is continuing to grow.

The main takeaway is that we learnt that through collaboration one also grows in knowledge and can see gaps within the work they will be doing, as constantly there is need to transform yourselves with the changing times and needs. Through collaboration we are now assured of having long term and a wider spread impact that can help us towards achieving our baby steps in reaching the organisation’s ultimate vision of an inclusive Zimbabwe that embraces diversity.

The post kanthari blog – purple hand africa first appeared on kanthari.

by Geeta Dangol Maharjan – Nepal

“Boom!”
What was that?
It was a Saturday, early in the morning, when we heard this loud sound.

My sisters and I were sleeping when our father came rushing into our room to check on us. It was a bomb that had exploded, and our house was located at the centre of the main road. Now we heard a huge crowd of people gathering in front of our window. Fear was in the air.
I was born in Kirtipur, also known as the “City of Glory”, a town which is located on the southeast of Kathmandu Valley. Kathmandu is the capital of Nepal.

Nepal had always been a peaceful country, ruled by the late King Birendra. It used to be safe before the civil war started in 1996. Then there were explosions of bombs everywhere. The Nepalese became insecure. The political conflicts lasted from 1996 to 2006. Since most bombs were built with pressure cookers, the term pressure cooker became a taboo.

During this time, our lives were disturbed. Whether daily activities, education or employment, nothing was functioning normally. Fear was everywhere. Having grown up in a family with a business background, we received life-threatening letters that were pushed under our main door almost every morning. These were requests for money to support the fight. My parents were in constant worry whenever we were outside or coming back from school.

Seeking safety, people started to migrate from Kirtipur to Kathmandu, and my sisters and I were sent to India for further studies. After my studies, I started working in India; later, I moved to France to help my sister in her business.

As my parents were getting older and needed support, I returned to my hometown in 2017. But now I was a stranger. After so many years living, studying, and working in India and Europe, I felt lost in my own home. I didn’t have friends, and I could not connect with the people surrounding me.

But my hometown had changed as well. It used to be a tourist attraction—beautiful old buildings, meticulously kept—but now, after two decades, it was poorly managed in terms of waste, and lots of concrete buildings had replaced the paddy fields and farming land. The population had exploded, but the inhabitants suffered from lack of employment. Men went abroad for employment, to countries like Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Japan, and Korea, where many got exploited doing hard labor. Women were equally eager to leave the country, but due to their family responsibilities, most women were left behind without jobs.

I was desperate to find work or even to do something on my own. But I wasn’t sure what I could do. Meanwhile, my father was encouraging me to join a gathering at a festival. And there I met women who were looking for opportunities like me. We all suffered from the changes in our community and felt that something needed to be done, especially for and with those women who were worse off than us, those who were alone, unemployed, and thus marginalized. We decided to do something for our community and started an entrepreneurship training program for women.

When I first came back from Europe, I had felt a deep concern about the pollution and the growing waste. But back then, I had felt helpless. Now, with our team, we hope that we can start a change. Next to entrepreneurial training, we offer waste management programs to try to keep our City of Glory clean. Waste and pollution are an issue in cities all over the world. And although Nepal has become safe, we fear another, more global threat. We feel that we all are sitting on a ticking time bomb.

The post kanthari blog 02-07-2021 geeta first appeared on kanthari.

by Puneet Singhal, 2021 kanthari participant

My journey from a mainstream jobholder to becoming a social change maker, from an observer to an actor, starts with questions: What is the purpose of human existence and how can I make my life more meaningful?

Unfortunately, the Indian education system neither encourages asking questions nor promotes independent research. Luckily, my parents gave me enough space to remain curious. They let my imagination fly. They both are wonderful human beings with distinct personalities and opinions.

At one point however, conflicts between both of them started. Although, I was just an observer and not directly involved, these conflicts made me insecure, and they left me anxious and stressed. I don’t remember when I turned into an introvert and started avoiding eye contact. I began to stammer but only when I was talking about myself, when I was “Puneet”, never when I had to act a role in a theatre-play or when I described a particular incident as an observer. But who am I? And why am I here in this world? These questions are interconnected to many other questions: My search for  purpose in life is evolving every day, every word I read, every incident I go through, and every person I meet, reminds me on these questions.

Being an observer, I don’t want to hide in a shell. I am consciously trying to challenge myself and grow. I continued exploring different interests to feel liberated. Thus, I was volunteering for different social causes. With time, I started getting a sense of belonging, especially to people who want to drive social change.

At some point, I even found a place where I wasn’t an outsider anymore.

Before, I had been a misfit into various social constructs. I felt like an outsider in my city, in my caste, in my school, and even in my extended family.

After completing my graduation, I started working in an International Bank. But soon I realized that I was trying to fit into something which was not for me. In one year of employment, I understood: in a rat race the winner is also a rat!
I left the job in a hurry and started doing what I always wanted to do.

My two friends and I started an organization in July 2018 called “the Caring hands foundation”. It is a spoken English and computer training centre. Well, the centre was not much more than the terrace of my home. But we had a clear and simple rule: As soon as one entered the space, the only language of communication was English.

I belong to a part of Delhi called Sangam Vihar, which is Asia’s largest unauthorized slum colony and home to a vast number of the working class. According to the Times of India, 90% of the criminals of southern Delhi come from this neighborhood. Youngsters are indulged in drugs, violence, robbery, and all sort of illegal activities. Also, there is a steep increase in the number of suicides among youngsters due to lack of employment. For youth there are hardly any obvious opportunities.

Due to lacking experience and guidance, we were exhausting ourselves, working extremely hard to manage the organization. And then I stumbled over a post in a facebook group which mentioned kanthari, a leadership training institute for social change makers. Studying the website and learning about the curriculum, I felt, it is exactly what we, my friends and I, needed. Many elements in this curriculum were new to me, even the selection process with intensive Interviews were an enriching experience. And then there was the Pandemic, due to which the kanthari 2020 batch was postponed. Also, we had to close our centre. Instead, we were distributing masks and sanitizers.

Being an observer, I realized that the Covid pandemic brought many unexpected side-affects: I witnessed sudden outbursts of fake news and forged videos which blamed one single community for the spread of Covid-19 in India. To counter this hate campaign, I designed a “Cyber Hygiene” program as I felt that practicing appropriate online etiquette was as crucial as maintaining physical hygiene like washing hands.

Later, we also campaigned against online bullying, trolling, financial fraud, and other malpractices. we believe that advocacy and counselling make our online users less vulnerable to cyber-attacks. It was the first program for which I got funding from an international organization.

Our efforts were recognized by the Delhi Minority Commission and by the UN Global Compact Network. I was a member of the Peace Committee of Delhi Minority Commission for a year. The Online learning Platform Coursera offered us a helping hand by giving our students free access to their courses. It helped us to continue our work remotely.

Now being at the kanthari campus, my focus is on not only learn how to run a social organisation but also how to formulate a vision.

Taking my ideas forward to realize them in the real world, I also had to learn to unlearn.

Spending time and discussing different topics with other social change makers from diverse cultures, countries and backgrounds is making me think deeper and giving me a whole new perspective. In the coming months, I am looking forward to learn more and evolve as a social leader and a better human being overall. And here, I am sure, I will find the answer to my questions: “What is the purpose of human existence and how can I make my life more meaningful.

The post kanthari blog 18-06-2021 first appeared on kanthari.

By Yampier Aguiar Durañona

You might think that writing about your own podcast is an easy homework. Well, no it isn’t. At least not for me. When I was searching a catchy slogan for the podcast “Stick Your Neck Out!”, the Podcast of the Giraffe Heroes Foundation, I was looking for something that sounded good, inspires and described the initial idea of the podcast – today, with more than 35 episodes published and many more in production, I am convinced that the one I found is unbeatable: “The podcast to restore your faith in humanity” does exactly that.

I’ve interviewed Giraffe Heroes, kanthari Alumni and Friends of Giraffes. Every single one of them has remarkable stories. In fact, some listeners described getting “goosebumps” when listening to these stories and reflecting on my guests’ lives and work. Well, me too. It’s a funny thing, getting goosebumps. Sometimes you get them in a positive way, sometimes the other way around. But one thing I know for sure, talking to these people, researching about them, getting to know them in this very personal way, has made me recover, restore, my faith in humanity. And I hope these inspiring talks can restore the faith in humanity of those who listen to it too. Helping hands, altruism and kindness are all around!

Let me tell you our story, the story of this podcast. The Giraffe Heroes Project is soon to become 40 years old. Its mission is to commend and support personalities sticking their necks out and fighting for the social issues that matter: justice, freedom, our environment… For three years the Giraffe Heroes Foundation (GHF), mostly devoted to European Giraffes who stick their necks out for the common good, has been active from Basel.

I approached the GHF founder with the idea of having a podcast. Another storytelling platform to share the stories of these astonishing people called Giraffe Heroes. The stories also of complex and extensive issues, the stories of individuals whose lives exemplify the challenges of our times. And so it began.

At first there were only Giraffes. But while listening to our episode with Giraffe Hero Sabriye Tenberken, the GHF founder realized that the kantharis are doing something in a principal way similar to what he and his team at the foundation aim at doing. He wrote, and I quote: “ (…)you went into it from the root: you get the Giraffes before they even have properly awoken to themselves – and then help them to become what is hidden inside them. And this of course they will always remember and thus keep a relation and interaction with the source from where they have started out on their mature journey(…)”. So we went from telling only the stories of the Giraffe Heroes to also portraying kanthari Alumni.

“In what they are doing, the kantharis are the perfect example of and perfect match for the Giraffe-Heroes Project itself“ – reads a blog entry at “Staying the Course”, the blog of one of our most devoted friends. And so it is indeed.

kantharis, strong people who have overcome adversity and are equipped with the tools necessary to run their own organisations for social changes. The goal is to achieve (social) change from within – thus it’s obvious, that the aim is to create an impact in their own communities. Rather than just subsidising, it is an exchange of experiences and skills, a fruitful programme with a win-win situation for everyone who’s participating. Listening to the podcast is part of participating as well – to get active afterwards, to get out of the own comfort zone – that is a choice everyone has to make on their own.

Regardless of the circumstances in which they find themselves in the course of their lives, these Giraffes, kantharis, and friends of them are playing a part, a big one, in spreading positivity and making our world overcome its challenges. Having created this platform, this podcast reminds me of why I became a journalist. I wanted to drive belief and behavioural change. Listening to these stories, talking to these people is a confirmation that this podcast can’t have a different slogan.

But not everything is sweets and candies. It can be challenging doing a podcast. To produce an Interview Podcast like this one, you need at least two persons. Two persons sitting in different parts of the world, having different problems and different possibilities. Some of the programs you must work with, interviewing from a distance, are not super accessible. Many of the people trying to make this world a better place are people with disabilities – at least according to how the established, privileged society would describe it.

Most of my guests are people living in so called developing countries. Sometimes they have no electricity, insufficient internet, or really old equipment. Not all of them have a microphone, even less an audio interface to guarantee a good sound quality. For many of them this is not a priority. Luckily, having grown up in Cuba, these problems are very familiar to me: that there are more urgent problems than recording a podcast to widen your reach, that time doesn’t always seem so valuable, that mentality differs….

I’m conscious of how privileged the situation I find myself in right now is – yet I sometimes wish I could really do the recordings sitting in the same room – or at least having a really good connection to be able to transmit what it actually needs to have a really good audio – and what benefit that gives us.

Anyway – knowing, researching, and talking to people in this podcast was, and it still is, an absolutely positive experience. Especially during times when the corona pandemic has taken over media and made distances worldwide noticeably real again. Through the talks though I could get a close impression on what all these social change makers are up to.

I’m really happy, every Tuesday, to make more people know about these truly important, truly honest and real social changes which are being created. In my head there is a map already where to go next – and how to produce more detailed, more visionary portraits of all those individuals, creating valuable information about their projects – making people know about those hands-on activists for social change who don’t fear to take on the challenge.

I truly feel impact and inspiration to go and visit the campus, meeting face to face

with Sabriye, with Paul, the team, and the current round of kantharis. I’d love to accompany them and to be able to be part of exchanging experience and information from the very first beginning and to share my knowledge about what to put in the backpack of each new kanthari regarding knowledge and tools for how to handle media, how to handle a homepage, online presence, conducting interviews… – letting my experiences from the past months be part of advising others on how to cope with the obstacles that were recurring but are easy to be taken care of…

Meanwhile, I’m going on producing the podcast, curious on what comes next, hopeful, to be able to overcome technical hurdles and physical distance – and, fingers crossed, we’ll make it to Kerala on time to dive into the social change spirit personally.

Sharing this space with the Giraffe Heroes, with the Friends and with the kantharis, has been a roller coaster of feelings. Every episode comes and goes with increasing my optimism. I’ve had guests who motivated me to do good. Others have encouraged me to cope with my own shortcomings. Some remind me to be the change I wish to see. I’ve been able to look deeper at other’s emotions and motivations, to understand them, to listen, to hope, to give back, to heal.

Listen to this podcast, and your faith in humanity will be restored!
http://www.giraffe-heroes.eu/en/stick-your-neck-out/

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