Chennai: To create awareness and make people speak out about gender violence, Prajnya, a trust working in the areas of peace, justice and security, is organising multitudes of activities and discussions to bring people together and sensitize them.
This is being done as part of a 16-day campaign from November 25 to December 10. “The main objective of each day's activities is to get people to speak about gender violence and not to think that they are better off concealing such things,” said Ragamalika Karthikeyan, programme officer at Prajnya.
For 16 days, discussions, activities or workshops have been scheduled to look at one or more issues daily. The Letterbox Resistance that was organised on November 25 saw a novel way of sending postcards and letters to people conveying them about harassment of women.
“All of us sat in groups and wrote letters to people including anonymous letters sensitising them about gender violence and the need to end it. Letters were posted to transport and the sanitation departments. A postcard was sent to Nadigar Sangam asking them to not glorify stalking in cinemas,” said Ragamalika. She added that many of the letters are being written by mothers to their daughters, and some to be read on a later date, in a hope that such harassment will cease to exist a few years from now.
'Stories on wheels' has women bikers, who went from Guindy to Semmozhi Poonga, speaking to women about harassment faced by them, opening up with and to them.
