Documentation of the workshop with a host of MAF grantees working with women’s health and rights issues. The objective was to map digital technology and communication needs of these organisations. The day saw professionals from advocacy, communication and research backgrounds from organisations including Breakthrough, CEDPA-India, CHSJ, HAQCRC, ICRW, IPAS, MAF, MAMTA-HIMC, NFI, Population Council, PFI, TARSHI and the YP Foundation. To paint a clearer picture, here’s a few examples of issues these organisations address: maternal and new born care, family planning, reproductive health and rights for adults and adoloscents, child health and child rights, girl child education, women’s skill development and employment, preventing violence against women, women’s safety etc.

1. Mimba
Delhi Workshop
with MAF Grantees
25.4.2014

2. Goal of the workshop
The goal of the workshop was to understand
organization’s activities, challenges and
opportunities in achieving their programmatic
milestones as well as identify ideas how the
digital activist platform Mimba can support the
organizations in their goals.

3. Workshop content
• Organization introductions and
programmatic milestones
• Our organization’s activities in an ideal
world
• Barriers that challenge our organization’s
goals
• Clustering into themes
• Ideating solutions for themes

4. Organization introduction
and their goals

5. Priyanka Mukherjee
Senior Program Officer, Communication &
NBD
Centre for Development and Population
Activities (CEDPA)
Goals
• Position our new name
• Need for tools on innovations for
programming – same as TARSHI
• Make published material accessible
while keeping copyright
• Get on the social media channels
• Reach wider audience
• Reach remote audiences through
means beyond IVRS and field visits

6. Swati Parmar
Manager, Youth Program
Centre for Development and Population
Activities (CEDPA)
About
• 3 divisions – Gender and
Governance, Maternal
and Child Health, Life
skill and SRH education
for young people
Goals
• We reach out to young
students in schools through
CD and need to connect it
with websites and social media
in a robust way

7. Rajib Acharya
Associate
Population Council
Statistician, Demographer and Program Evaluation
Specialist
Research Background with Adolescent focus
ICT project examples:
• Gujarat: IVRS system between
schools and parents to
improve retention of girls from
middle to high school
• SHG Program, Bihar:
Intervene through husbands to
prevent violence against
women – includes IVRS
component
Goals
• Reach decision makers, push
our research to governments
and policy makers and find a
place in their strategies and
policies in India

8. Prabha Nagaraja
Executive Director
TARSHI (Talking About Reproductive
and Sexual Health Issues)
Digital examples:
• IVRS Helpline
• Tweetathon for access to safe
abortion in collaboration with
IPAS and others
• Collaborated with
Breakthrough for tweetathons
Goals
• Expand reach for IVRS
• All of us need to collectively
publicize the different IVR
services created
• Wider reach for our blog
(create content on sexuality
and rights in the global south)

9. Lavanya Mehra
Program Manager, Information
Management Team + HR & Org
Development
Centre for Health and Social Justice
//2nd MenEngage Global Symposium :
Men and Boys for Gender Justice.
Goals
• Evaluate change through all of
the content and media we
have created (community
radio, IVRS, films)
Goals: Symposium
• Mobilization around the issues
of the Global Symposium from
grassroots to South Asian level
to global
• Increasing scope of
participation
• Leverage on existing
organisations and resources to
achieve this mobilization and
participation

10. Lavanya Mehra/CHSJ contd.
The Reproductive Health
Observatory
The observatory collects
grassroots evidences, stories,
case studies which often do not
get reported, noticed by
government, practitioners, policy
makers and the public. This will
be a small step to connect with
grassroots civil society
institutions, leaders, activists and
the most marginalised and give a
perspective to these voices.
Goals
• Continue advocacy
• How can we take the
Observatory which is a shared
platform forward?

11. Priyanka Subramaniam
CAC Consultant
Ipas India
Digital examples:
CAC Connect
• Manages CAC Connect
network – a platform for
networking and continuous
training of doctors.
• Train doctors to provide
comprehensive abortion care
services to women through the
public health care system
Goals
• Reaching target audience that
doesn’t have regular access to
the internet
• Users not in habit of using the
internet to reach out for
resources
• Engage doctors and create
solidarity amongst them
• Encourage and sustain
participation

12. Radhika Takru
Digital Media Strategist
Breakthrough
Mission: Global HR, prevent violence and
discrimination against women and girls
About
Recently changed campaign
strategy to short, action oriented
campaigns from older ones which
lasted for years.
• Now: 6 campaigns/year
• Done to create an engaged
constituency that can run a
similar campaign or push the
message on their own
Goals
• Build a constituency
(Constituency is an activated
group of people with a common
interest, belief or ambition. They
self-identify and seek change.)
• Bring offline and online together
• Need comprehensive marketing
strategy, for eg. Like used by e-
commerce sites
• We generate a lot of content, can
it be pushed beyond SM? Or in
better ways?

13. Richa Bansal
Communications Manager
Population Foundation of India
Goals:
• Improve awareness of
beneficiary rights
• Male engagement in beneficiary
health care and rights
• Better demand for reproductive
health services from
beneficiaries
• More powerful advocacy with
the government to match up to
the demand side
• Greater budgetary allocation
• Target Audience 1: connect
with on the ground through
IVRS
• Target audience 2: Urban
and Donors on Social Media
• How do you connect these 2
targets audiences?
• To legitimize our work -
person on the ground feels
the concern and our
supporters feel connected
with the cause

14. Esha Kalra Malhotra
Program Officer
Population Foundation of India
“ PFI works on advocating for women’s rights, and
helps in formulating gender sensitive policies. Issues
we work with include delaying marriage and first
pregnancy, healthy timing between pregnancies,
quality of care.”
Digital example/ Flagship
project
• I, a woman, can achieve
anything – TV Series
• Feedback system through
IVRS which received 75,000
queries on reproductive health
from both women and men in
the 1st month

15. Anisha Ghosh
Programme Officer, Children and
Governance
HAQ Centre for Child Rights
Child marriage, violation of child’s rights in
mining areas, counseling, research on
these issues
• We create videos and content.
We need to create a reach for
this.
• Digital media creates a good
interface between various
stakeholders we work with.
Trying to work with this and
share our work.
Goals
• We’d like to connect online
with various kinds of
stakeholders across the
country, considering they aren’t
very active on SM.
• Connecting Online-Offline
• Connect with prospective
donors online. We do have a
global reach but it needs to go
online, not just a closed door
meeting

16. Shubh Sharma
Technical Specialist
International Center for Research on
Women (ICRW)
Expertise: Measurement and Evaluation,
Advocacy and Policy Engagement,
Economic Empowerment, Adolescents
About
• ICRW does action
research and evaluation
for women’s
empowerment program
i.e empowerment -
health, education,
livelihood, skill
development
Goals
• Advocate to govt. and donors
• Create visibility and
communicate the impact and
success of an empowerment
project for women garment
factory workers to govt and
donors and other relevant
stakeholders

17. Ankita Rawat
The YP Foundation
Mansi Virmani
Program Officer, Youth
Centre for Development
and Population
Activities (CEDPA)
Dr Naveen Sethi
MAMTA-HIMC
Shikha Shukla
Regional Manager
MAMTA-HIMC
Rimjhim Jain
Centre for Health
and Social Justice
Participants
Dheeraj
Goswami
Program Assistant
Information
Management
Centre for Health
and Social
Justice

18. Quotes
from the discussions

19. “We need a bottom-up
approach to get stories
from the ground”
“Everybody is working within
their own silos. How do we
go beyond that?
“How do we bring offline and online
audiences together and how can one
feed off the other?”
“No policy change can
be achieved by a
single organisation.”
What are the
incentives for
collaboration?
“There is excellent data available, but it lies
in small pockets and is not processed into
more user friendly forms”
“There is unhealthy
competitiveness
between
organisations”
“Attitudinal barriers exist –
even if we get technology to
the ground, the receptivity
to it needs to be created”
“We want the government to come to us and tell us to take up research – not
the current way of doing research and trying to push to the government.”

20. Identified Themes

21. 1. Reach & Engagement
– How to go beyond social
media
– Reach a wider audience
– What tools can be used, for
who?
– How to connect Online and
Offline
2. Information Access &
Sharing
– Disseminate research
findings and package
them
– Influence decision makers
3. Tools for innovation
4. Building
communities and
collaboration
– How to access experts
and leverage their
knowledge and
expertise?

22. Ideation
How can a digital platform
help to perform better within
the identified themes

23. 1. REACH & ENGAGE
Improve the process for organizations
• Need to do quick research and
landscape analysis at the start
of a campaign
• Keep up with trends
• Create a framework of
understanding on the issue
• Identify champions
• Tools for social accountability
• Verbal public autopsy
• Bottom up approach: Share
stories from the ground
• Have people on the ground
write stories and publish them
• Take action
• Create a sense of global
community
• Put responsibility to everyone

24. 1. REACH & ENGAGE
Engaging people into action
• Too much effort to participate
• Deeper engagement with a
cause
• More ways of participating
• More transparency and regular
reporting
• Keep the interest up
• Quick mechanics to engage
right people
• Learn about impact
• How can one be more
relevant/one’s skills
• Speaking with the right people
• More flexible ways of
interacting – time, skills,
rewards, motivation
• Little steps rather than the big
problem at once
• More stories, clear linkage to
people affected

25. 2. INFORMATION SHARING/
RESEARCH
• What is the evidence that
speaks to governments?
Identify right evidence for govt
• Policy brief/white paper
• Bring all research findings to
government as one message
• Collaborate and base findings
as a joint group
• Agree joint messaging for
govt/stakeholders/media/social
media
• Package/ distill key messages
• Creating joint #tags
• Involve government and media
from the beginning
• Dissemination meeting
• Involve communication experts
in dissemination
• Network both formally and
informally

26. 3. TOOLS FOR INNOVATION
• Webinars/Web portal for
people working in the same
field
• Glossary: update on
terminology
• Help Desk/Helpline for
organizations to help each
other
• Directory of organisations
• Directory of tools
• Better linkages:
– User friendly
– Easy to access
– Auto updates
– Cross linked to other
platforms and resources
• Shadowing/exchange
programs
• Better videos and voice
recording, available to the
public
• Better media recording on the
ground
• Donor connectivity
• Small grants > innovation
funds > sponsors (CSR)
• Community radio/mobile based
to link with target audience
• Capacity building of local
stakeholders + influencers
• Involvement of boys and men
to drive change

27. 4. COMMUNITY BUILDING
• Create a sense of ownership
• Directory of Members
• Find people with shared
interest
• Different models of
participation
• Go beyond own network – One
Billion Rising allowed this
• Global campaigns
• Shared spaces for meaningful
participation
• Create a buy in strategy within
organisation using a clear
roadmap
• Mapping in-country resources
+ specialised knowledge
• Fostering dialogue and
participation without SM

28. Ways to stay at the forefront
of innovation
Problems & Solutions
P. Attitudinal barriers
/Receptiveness of our info?
S. Training the community
P. Tools and software not
available to general public
S. Collaborate with software
experts, video and editing experts
P. Copyright issues
S. Open Source –
CreativeCommons
Problems
• Competitiveness amongst
organisations
• Resource constraints
• Build ownership
Solutions
• Building component of
techno/innovation in our
fundraising
• Prioritize innovation within
organization and while
planning budgets. Also build
understanding with funders
• Use case studies to prove this
“Inter-movement dialogues breaks down barriers
like inertia and competitiveness”

29. Organizations
Digital Presence
Some Sketches

30. Organisations collaborating to acess:
• Funding
• Communication experts/partners
• Other Organisations

31. Showcase of organizational:
• Ideas
• Evidence
• Impact

32. Digital tools:
• Events – host/participate
• Campaigns – join/create
• Resources – Support/Discuss

35. Workshop Attendees and
Contacts
• Anisha Ghosh/HAQCRC
anisha@haqcrc.org
• Ankita Rawat/The YP
Foundation
ankita@theypfoundation
• Dipa Nag Chowdhury /MAF
dchowdhu@macfound.org
• Dheeraj Goswami/CHSJ
dheeraj@chsj.org
• Esha Kalra Malhotra/PFI
esha@populationfoundation.i
n
• Lavanya Mehra/CHSJ
lavanya@chsj.org
• Mansi Virmani/CEDPA India
mvirmani@cedpaindia.org
• Mari Tikkanen/M4ID
mari.tikkanen@m4id.fi
• Melanie Wendland/M4ID
melanie.wendland@m4id.fi
• Mridu Mehta/M4ID
mridu.mehta@m4id.fi
• Dr. Naveen Sethi/MAMTA-
HIMC
naveens@mamtahimc.org
drnaveensethi@yahoo.co.in
• Prabha Nagraj/TARSHI
• prabha@tarshi.net
• Priyanka Mukherjee/CEDPA
India
pmukherjee@cedpaindia.org
• Priyanka
Subramaniam/IPAS
subramaniamp@ipas.org
• Radhika
Takru/Breakthrough
radhika@breakthrough.tv
• Rajib Acharya/Population
Council
racharya@popcouncil.org
• Richa Bansall/PFI
richa@populationfoundation.i
n
• Rimjhim Jain/CHSJ
rimjain@hotmail.com
• Shikha Shukla/MAMTA-
HIMC
s.shikha@mamtahimc.org
• Shubh Sharma/ICRW
ssharma@icrw.org
• Swati Parmar/CEDPA India
sparmar@cedpaindia.org
• Sathyasree Goswami/NFI
sathyasree@nfi.org.in