Womwn's Centre Workshops

I have just been involved in 2 days of workshops being run by the centre which is hosting me. The Centre for Rural Development sits with the Research Centre for Women's Studies. The workshops were marking the first anniversary death of the woman who established the centre and played a significant role in the women's movement in India. There is a strong spirit of activism in the place, and they have been dealing with major issues of selective abortion of female foetuses, family planning rights, lack of access to education and employment, family violence etc. Over recent years the women's movement in India has begun working to redress caste based disadvantage.

Lectures at the workshops covered a broad range of issues, including Dalit literature, support networks for prostitutes, and the corporatisation and corruption of health care. (there are advertisements everywhere here for 'full body scanning') They are sure to find something wrong with you that needs fixing if you can afford it. I found the workshops really interesting and it was useful to be able to reflect on some of their practices and issues and how they relate to the issues of disadvantage in Australia and disability rights approaches. I have met up with academics from a number of schools here and from Uni of Mumbai. Have arranged to give presentations to students in the school of educational technology, the centre for rural development, special education, and the Centre for the study of Social Inclusion.

The Ganeesh festival finished a couple of nights ago. All the really big Ganeesh statues were wheeled to the beach by large processions, lots of fireworks, smoke and noise. In the evening the beach was jam packed with people as far as the eye could see. Everyone seemed a bit flat once it was over.

Yesterday I was on the road with people from the Unit here visiting the Uni of Mumbai which has a large, pretty green campus not too far from where I am working. Attended a workshop in plush surrounds but had to navigate peak hour traffic back to SNDT. I should have walked, though the absence of footpaths makes that a challenge. the traffic seems to be almost total gridlock. It is amazing how resilient people can be, and the way they find to make do with what is. If road rules were observed no one would go anywhere. To make the roads carry about 10 times the potential traffic, lights have to be run, wrong sides of road and footpaths used, and horns used as the mechanism to make sure all this action is communicated quickly and crashes avoided. (though I have seen a couple of crashes)