Insights

In their immersive journey of experiencing the grassroots, fellows share the challenges and discoveries made, and how it connects to a larger perspective to build insights

Education For Change

Education For Change

Imagine yourself as a child living in a small mud house in a green valley, with lush farms on rolling hills that extend until as far as you can see. Your family is engaged in agriculture, growing rice and corn. A good harvest ensures enough food for the next few...

Totes Amaze: How This NGO In Kutch Is Fighting Plastic With Plastic

Totes Amaze: How This NGO In Kutch Is Fighting Plastic With Plastic

Nine billion tons - that's the amount of plastic we have created since the large-scale production of synthetic materials began in the early 1950s. And why not, after all plastic is lightweight, flexible, relatively inexpensive, and durable, which also means that it...

Dialogue And Democracy: Understanding Theatre Of The Oppressed

Dialogue And Democracy: Understanding Theatre Of The Oppressed

Paulo Friere was a renowned Brazilian educator and philosopher. As a leading advocate of critical pedagogy that views teaching as a political act, indistinct from issues of social justice and democracy, predicated on fostering agency, empowering learners and...

What Being Restricted Taught Me About Empowerment

What Being Restricted Taught Me About Empowerment

As I work with Shram Sarathi in Gogunda block of Udaipur, Rajasthan, if I have to talk about the most epic ways of local commute, I'll tell you this... The field areas, though accessible through public transport, still require one to navigate a few kilometres on foot,...

Is Environment A Labour Issue?

Is Environment A Labour Issue?

Early last month, I watched Seaspiracy, Kip Anderson's second project to shed light upon a new dimension of the human-made environmental crisis. It's a documentary film that takes the viewer into the literal and metaphorical depths of the crisis unfolding at the seas,...

Failing And Moving From Making Agriculture Work For Rural Youth

Failing And Moving From Making Agriculture Work For Rural Youth

Born and brought up in Delhi, I had a fascination to get an exposure to the grassroots of India and see the rural realities in its raw form. To pursue this, I joined India Fellow, a social leadership program. As a part of that, I was placed with Shramik Bharti, an...

We Couldn’t Take Our Masks Off, We Couldn’t Drink Water

We Couldn’t Take Our Masks Off, We Couldn’t Drink Water

Picture from the archives of Setu Abhiyan - Urban team It is a cold December evening and the chilly wind is blowing the plastic shelter of the outside of the house, back and forth. Seated on the plastic rug fashioned from old 20kg cement bags, I make my notes under...

Those Who Fall Between The Cracks – Where Do They Go?

Those Who Fall Between The Cracks – Where Do They Go?

This lockdown was supposed to be different. Wasn’t everything planned to seem much more normal than last year? There are no heartbreaking images of migrants walking back hundreds of kilometres or those of workers stuck at inter-state bus terminals waiting to go back...

Aspirations Of Youth In Jamui, Rural Bihar

Aspirations Of Youth In Jamui, Rural Bihar

Introduction  Young people are agents of change in a country. Youth can be termed as a “transition period while the individuals prepare themselves to become responsible and productive citizens of the country”. Different organizations define the youth age group...

The Kishori Shramik And The Labour Market

The Kishori Shramik And The Labour Market

Note: This blog was first published on Feminism in India on 13th January, 2021 In the Sabla block of the Dungarpur district of Southern Rajasthan is where we met a 16 year old Manja* for the first time. Poking the ground with a stick she picked up on the way to where...

Who Are The Commons Really For?

Who Are The Commons Really For?

Disclaimer: This blog is a translation of a case study written by the Urban SETU team, working with migrants and the Nagar Palika of Bhuj city in Gujarat. If you read Gujarati, you can read it here! I have only connected the idea of The Tragedy Of The Commons and...

Love Story: Escape – Part 1/2

Love Story: Escape – Part 1/2

“‎‎ It was in the summers, about 30 years from today. I was pretty like those girls in TV serials. We didn’t have much, but Abba and Ammi spared enough for all my brothers and sisters, every month. I remember going with Abba to the vegetable market. Fond memories,...

Impact Of The Lockdown On Children

Impact Of The Lockdown On Children

“What has been the impact of the lockdown on children?” - the question popped up in the chat-box of an online webinar I was listlessly sitting through a few months ago, a time when the world was only beginning to grow accustomed to Zoom classrooms, office meetings and...