IFA Fellowships
IFA Fellowships are awarded to deeply committed individuals willing to perform grass-roots action in geographically remote or economically impoverished communities of India. Given below is the listing of current IFA fellows accompanied by summary of their work and link to details
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Name: Krishnakant Chauhan Location: Gujarat
Highlights: Primarily focused on working with the villagers/farmers of Mithi Virdi, Gujarat to bring awareness about the overall effect of Nuclear Power Plant and raising basic inquiry on the safety measures taken for the plant; Also works closely with the youth to bring educational awareness in order to expose them to various reform issues of society, encouraging them to play positive roles towards development of society; Also led the “My Vote, My Government Campaign” during 2012 Gujarat Elections.
Click here to learn more of Krishnakant's activism in 2012 annual summary |
Name: Richa Singh Location: Chattisgarh
Highlights: Richa Singh is a co-ordinator for Sangtin Kisan Mazdoor Sanghatan and has been relentlessly working at the grassroots level in Indian villages for more than a decade. Her work entails organizing laborers especially women, creating awareness and empowering the villagers in five blocks of Sitapur district in Uttar Pradesh state of India. Richa Singh's aim is to make the villagers' voices heard, who are often unaware of their rights and the benefits they are entitled to under various government development programs such as The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Through various means such as protests marches to the local government offices, she has been making an effort to infuse self-belief in villagers and prepare them to demand their own rights and fight their own battles. As a result, senior state bureaucrats have begun to take note of some of the villagers' demands and have promised corrective action. Her work includes educating the masses about women’s safety issues, Public Distribution System and various legislations such as Minimum Wage Bill, Food Security Act and MGNREGA.
Click here to learn more of Richa's activism in 2012 annual summary |
Name: Kalyan Anand Location: Orissa
Highlights: Kalyan Anand’s work involves coordinating, organizing and training participants of social democratic and Gandhian movements in Odisha. It also involves articulating the demands, appeals and grievances of the marginalized - typically Dalit, Adivasi and landless - strata of Odissi society. These movements include People’s movements fighting for fair treatment against unjust displacement by private and public sector projects, Right To Information (RTI) activity, Farmers’ movements, India Against Corruption (IAC) Movement and Human Rights movements that address issues ranging from custodial deaths to rehabilitation of families enslaved by bonded labor. These movements need incessant networking and coordination to be heard not just amongst the educated sympathetic circles of Indian civil society but also the executive echelons of the administration and judiciary. Crucial to sustain such struggles is the constant training of activists and mentoring of fresh new minds in Gandhian principles, Constitutional Rights and legal procedures.
Click here to learn more of Kalyan's activism in 2012 annual summary |
Name: Jayshankar Pandey Location: Chandauli, Uttar Pradesh
Highlights: Jayshankar Pandey, one of IFA’s most dynamic activists, has made significant impacts in his region through multitude of work. Although the focus of his work is in RTI and MGNREGA, which is his specialty, he selflessly volunteers to take up issues of immediate concern for the masses. Besides blowing the lid off many corrupt activities, he continues to organize educational seminars (on voting importance, women’s violence, cleanliness etc.) to bring social changes at ground level. His strong work ethics and self-driven nature has been a key factor in achieving IFA’s goal to change society through collaboration and awareness.
Click here to learn more of Jayshankar's activism in 2012 annual summary |
Name: Manisha Marulasiddappa Location: Khunti/Latehahar, Jharkhand
Highlights: Manisha is a joint co-coordinator of MGNREGA Help Center in Jharkhand. Twice a week, she and her team visit the remote villages to meet with laborers to capture their grievances and with the local block volunteer to discuss and plan further activities; activities that will help improve economic conditions in the villages and increase workers participation in MGNREGA and related development programs. She also helps conduct surveys whenever required for other development schemes like Public Distribution System (PDS), Pension Schemes and Mid-Day Meal (MDM). The team brings to attention of the administration the obstacles and grievances faced during the implementation of these programs. Where government officers are uncooperative, the team leverages their deep understanding of the legislation to ensure bureaucrats respond to the concerns of the villagers.
Click here to learn more of Manisha's activism in 2012 annual summary |
Name: Subash Mohapatra Location: Chattisgarh
Highlights: Subash is a leading activist at the forefront of the fight against violators of human rights in the remotest areas of India for many years. Based in Odisha, Subash has focused on human rights interventions, litigations and awareness programs. With the aid of NHRC (National Human Rights Commission), Subash has filed numerous cases of human rights abuse and followed them up with Odisha State Government, NHRC, the Odisha High court and the State government machinery to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice and the victims or their families are compensated. Subash has utilized his legal expertise in high profile cases such as the Rs. 28cr. liqour scam in Odisha and the Rs. 3.2Cr corruption case of public funds for the welfare of female students in Utkal University.
Click here to learn more of Subash's activism in 2012 annual summary |
Name: Inayat Sabhikhi Location: Jharkhand
Highlights: Inayat Sabhikhi served as the Secretary for the National Campaign for People's Right To Information (NCPRI) in capacities ranging from mobilizing awareness events to helping draft legislation. She was able to further work on the Jan Lokpal Bill, specifically the Citizens Right to Grievance Redressal within that Bill, as well as the Pre-Legislative Process to help ensure governmental delivery mechanisms are efficiently and transparently serving the population. Over the course of the year, she was able to passionately engage in RTI, NREGA, Right To Food and Pension related issues to ensure vulnerable populations are able to contribute to society while not being abused.
Click here to learn more of Inayat's activism in 2012 annual summary |
Name: Prakash Gupta Location: Chattisgarh
Highlights: Prakash is one of IFA’s new recipient of IFA Fellowship focused on expansion and promotion of CGNet Swara. CGNet Swara is a unique technology that provides voice to traditionally oppressed people from tribal belt, where their recorded stories are heard on a bigger platform. Prakash was recently featured on CNN-IBN for exposing the corruption activities related to a bridge (in Balrampur, Chhattisgarh) that collapsed within a year of construction. He continues to train more and more people in making the best use of Swara technology.
Click here to learn more of Prakash's activism in 2012 annual summary |
Name: Faisal Khan Location: Delhi/Haryana
Highlights: Faisal Khan is a social activist with two major goals – one, the socio-economic betterment of underprivileged Muslims and two - building of communal harmony. To achieve the first objective, he conducts job fairs and works with the Minority Commission to identify welfare schemes for minorities, so that available funding is properly utilized; He organizes non-violent protests and Satyagrahas when explanations and exhortations fall on deaf ears; To achieve his second objective, he organizes ongoing interfaith dialog events such as taking a Muslim delegation to the Kumbh Mela and provides a platform for progressive Muslim voices to express their concerns about fundamentalism.
Click here to learn more of Faisal's activism in 2012 annual summary |
Name: Parwati Barthwal Location: Delhi
Highlights: Originally from Uttarachal, Parvati moved to New Delhi about ten years ago and has dedicated her life to the service of the rag-pickers in slums of Delhi(Kaapsaheda bustee and neighboring slums such as Pochanpur and Uttam Nagar). Her particular focus is on empowerment of women as she strongly believes that no society can be uplifted without engaging women, about half the population, in the social reform process. She is a prime change agent in enablement of vocational training and establishment of indigenous cooperative saving societies. Her work in spreading awareness in basic health and hygiene and particularly her success with family-planning amongst women is particularly commendable.
Click here to learn more of Parwati's activism in this annual summary |
Name: Prakash Kumar Location: Delhi
Highlights: Prakash Kumar is a highly dedicated social activist leading the struggle for a better deal for the impoverished rag pickers, one of the most ostracized group of workers in our society. His tireless pursuit to provide dignity, recognition and basic needs of life for the rag pickers and slum dwellers of Delhi area is touching and inspiring. One of his major accomplishment has been to organize the rag pickers by establishing the Kachraa Kaamgaar Union. Recently, he has started taking an active role in the universal pension rights campaign for informal workers at the national level. His grass root level experience with the rag pickers in Delhi makes him a valuable asset in this drive to provide institutional justice to the workers in the unorganized sector.
Click here to learn more of Prakash's activism in 2012 annual summary |
Name: Arvind Murthy Location: Uttar Pradesh
Highlights: Arvind Murthy is a social activist with a strong passion and commitment to positive social change, by being intimately and organically connected to the local communities. Arvind's work ranges from education and livelihood-preservation to RTI and social upliftment to name a few. Arvind has been active in improving rural education in remote villages and mentoring vocational training for a dalit colony. He has spearheaded the matter of community ownership of the fishermen at Taal Ratoy. He has also exposed corruption in the education system using tools such as RTI very effectively. Arvind enjoys a great rapport with diverse communities, and has confidence of doctors, lawyers, journalists and other activists in the region.
Click here to learn more of Arvind's activism in 2012 annual summary |
Name: Pallavi Raonka Location: Jharkhand
Highlights: Pallavi is a young, dedicated activist who focuses on addressing grievances related to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. She and her team run a help center in Khunti, aiding the locals to understand, participate and benefit from this government program. They work directly with government officials to expedite paper work and invigorating them to resolve impediments, making the process faster, efficient and more transparent. Her deep knowledge about the various afflictions faced by the rural community through formal education and practical field experience, gives her an overall insight of how various government policies and upcoming bills affect these people.
Click here to learn more of Pallavi's activism in 2012 annual summary |
"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."
- Mahatma Gandhi
- Mahatma Gandhi