General Context

Sangat is a feminist network housed under JAGORI, New Delhi which connects feminist individuals and organizations across South Asia. Sangat was created in the year 1988 April at a workshop of gender trainers, held in Bangladesh and organized by FAO-NGO Programme. Sangat is the product of realization of the fact of steady declination of transformatory gender work. Sangat’s work is focused on bringing about a large cultural shift in large scale. They are driven by the motto to dismantle the patriarchy and building a gender just world.

They start off by working on an individual and focus on bringing women from diverse background together at one place and hold feminist capacity building courses. The major idea to do so is to make the individuals who are not able to express pliably realize that there are several others who are facing the issues and problems of patriarchal concerns. By bringing the individuals together, Sangat brings together individuals who are not vocal and intends to change their perception. The courses designed by Sangat brings the people in contact with resource person and experts who talks about gender and patriarchal construction and its impact on the people. They believe that development, democracy ad peace are possible with the development of identity and perspective. Hence,  there they are surrounded by others also and then they realize that these problems problems/issues faced by women the patriarchal concerns , even though they are not able to express it , that what has been plaguing them is a larger systematic patriarchal society, they spend their life thinking  something is wrong with them , which the courses designed by Sangat intends to change , by bringing together these people and bringing them in touch with resource person, experts who talks about how gender and patriarchy is constructed and its impact hoping that the networks will be able to bring a larger change.

Advocacy Agenda Setting

Agenda

Major things that Sangat have been focused on is VAW which is the issue that they have been working on, since 2013 and have really picked up campaigning. For instance in 2017 they have campaigned for property for her and in 2019 campaign against unpaid care work only for women. They are not advocating with state, they have a very cultural approach, it is about connecting people and trying to bring about a change in their thinking. Cultural advocacy, they are not seeking for any legal changes or policy level change, they believe in bringing change in the culture. Sangat holds cultural events, recently they just concluded a 4 month long film festival and which was on the issue of environmental activism. And for the entire 4 months they were engaging with the people on how to build alternatives to capitalist patriarchal paradigm. So they are a network that promotes ideas rather than other form of activism.

Participation and Representation

Sangat work has a specific pedagogy that they follow and as for their courses it has been there for 20 years which is really focused on bringing people together and immersing them in an environment that makes them comfortable and not just unidirectional flow of information from resource person to the participants but rather it is about a community being there for a month and learning from each other by sharing experience and not a monotonous classroom like setting where the resource person would share their information and it’s a very specific pedagogy. From the seating arrangement and training methods they prefer the learning to be multidirectional. With time the passage of time the agenda of the course has also changed, they  have included contents that are more relevant to the current context such as on digital activism and feminism and building a feminist internet. There are 3 member secretariat and apart from the secretariat there is a core group which is essentially 24 feminist leaders across south asia in who are representation from all over south asia are engaged in the agenda setting. Burning issues and the voice of marginalized are taken into consideration during the agenda setting.

Strategies for mobilizing and collectivizing

Strategies

they mostly utilize art, art based activism, song , dance, theatre.

In terms of participants , who will come to the course We have a specific criteria: geography, ethnicity, minority groups, non-binary gender and then in a way majority population of the country , power equation shift is also taken into account balance is ensured to set a comfortable environment,  Commitment to social justice is proven. The course varies according to the target group, Impromptu Session, refreshment session.

Sangats have various courses and campaign programs. They are a network of more than 800 individuals and organization and these network take initiatives to hold campaigns. They have campaigns like VAW, property for her, people join their campaigns and it is how they function.

Their work is on building an individual’s conceptual understanding. And then providing such individuals with the support systems which they might not have in their personal and professional. Some might have no idea where to go with such problems, where to even find such people who would understand them, shared common issues who would understand what they are going through. That is why Sangat first of all builds and strengthen a conceptual understanding make them understand that there is a problem and to acknowledge the existence of the problem in the society, they are the part of the society and how can they change it. That is a journey that a person has to go through, then Sangat provides women engaged with a support system which is essentially within their networks, they have a really strong groups and they are always there with each other in different capacities, every course comes with their alumni group and which has become more stronger with the time due to the advancement of the technology. When the person comes to their course they not only get connected to their peers who are working in various CSOs but also will come into contact with the feminist experts who have to the course and will come into contact with the campaigns and this link with the feminist becomes the support system.