29 October 2007 Campaign Planning Meeting

At today’s DV Act Campaign planning meeting, campaign partners made more progress on preparing for the 16 Days of Activism events.

First, the group members gave updates about progress made on tasks assigned at the last meeting. The materials for the campaign have been finalized and will be sent to the printer on November 2nd. On October 26th, Ravi, Mitashri and Shakila went to Doordarshan and proposed to have a talk show there on November 23rd and 24th. They will have another meeting with the partners in Doordarshan on November 3rd or 4th to discuss this further. Oxfam will arrange a street play with a team from Jokera, Azamghar. The script is being prepared, and after finalizing the script, the team will perform in several districts of UP. Mamta told the group that she was not yet able to talk with the Rajya Suchna Vibhag because the concerned person was out of town. However, Mamta will try to contact this person when s/he returns. Lastly, Shruti shared a newly-published issue of “Hinsa Mukt Juvan Sabka Adhikar” with the group.

Following the updates, the group discussed ways to increase people’s awareness of and involvement in the campaign. To get others involved, the group decided to create a poster describing the campaign activities that will take place in Lucknow. Sanjukta of AALI and Shruti of Oxfam will prepare this poster. Mahendra volunteered to send brochures and other materials about domestic violence to people who wish to get involved. The group also discussed radio announcements, and Amit of SAHAYOG said he would follow up with FM Rainbow before the end of the month.

The group then discussed plans for the campaign kick-off events. It was decided that a press conference will be held at the Press Club on Friday, November 23rd. Susheela of SAHAYOG will be in charge of coordinating the press conference. The group agreed that they need to develop a program for the kick-off weekend events which lists the different events and when they will take place. Sudha of Humsafar and Amit of SAHAYOG volunteered to work on this event program and also told the group that there is a team that can help with the street play and the script. It was decided that there will be a candlelight demonstration on Saturday, November 24th from 5:00pm to 7:00pm at Parivartan Chowk. At the demonstration there will be two banners and display boards. Ajay will help organize the candlelight demonstration and the materials. On November 25th, the campaign will host a film screening. If possible, the group would like to have Nandita Das, Rahul Bose, Jeved Akhtar or Farukh Shekh attend the screening, and Shruti volunteered to invite them. The film screening will be followed by a panel discussion with panelists including famous personalities from Lucknow. SAHAYOG will provide the DVD and will arrange to get the screen from NAZ, and AALI will arrange for the LCD. The group discussed possible venues for the film screening and narrowed it down to three options: Ravindralaya, Ganna Sansthan, or Gandhi Bhawan. Sanjukta will contact Ravindralaya, Shruti will contact Ganna Sansthan, and Mamta will contact Ghandi Bhawan.

The next meeting will be held at 3:00pm on Monday, November 5th at the SAHAYOG Office