Samyak Foundation: A Profile
Samyak Foundation grew out of a small group of journalists who wanted to do something extra, to go beyond the confines of journalism so serve the community, their fraternity, journalism and the society. It wasn’t until recently that it took a formal shape as a trust. Even without being a legal entity Samyak has done several activities. Most of them have one thing in c
ommon, the thread that runs through every activity. That is our concern for the Hindi belt. Samyak Foundation is now a registered public charitable trust. It has approval to receive contributions with tax exemptions under section 80 G (5) (vi) of the Income Tax Act. It is also registered under section 12A, with section 12AA of the Income Tax Act, 1961. .
. Its aims and objectives are,
• Bridging the gap between the media and social-developmental sectors.
• Networking, partnering with and capacity building of young journalists and voluntary grassroots developmental organizations.
• Fostering regular and constructive dialogue and collaboration between all the stakeholders in socio-economic development
• Documentation and dissemination of developments and news relating to the entire gamut of welfare and development.
• Using all communication technologies and techniques to foster voluntarism, development, enhance media space for and coverage of development news, voluntary developmental organizations and related issues. Activities so far
1. We have done a Nepal and Bangladesh Media Sensitization project for ActionAid. Under the project the Samyak team traveled to Kathmandu and Dhaka respectively to facilitate a two-day residential Media workshop at each capital. The workshops were held on 4-5 December, 2007 and 21-22 January, 2008 respectively.
2. In another media sensitization project on HIV, Samyak interacted quite intensively with journalists of eight high prevalent districts of north and east Bihar. Done in collaboration with TAHA-UNDP, this project was the first of its kind in which apart from organizing a series of workshops for these journalists Samyak also arranged study tours of around 40 selected journalists to four metros (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata) where these journalists could directly interact with some of the best performing institutes / individuals / positive networks / MSM networks / research institutes / state AIDS control committees and know various dimensions of HIV and AIDS.
3. Under the same project Samyak has produced a unique book titled “SAFAR: HIV, Yaun-karm aur Patrakaarita ke Daayre” (The Journey: In the Framework of HIV, S*x Work and Journalism). The book documents (a) three stories of ex s*x workers from Bihar, written by a lady activist who herself belongs to a family of ex-s*x worker (b) some of the best writings on HIV in Bihar before Samyak’s project and also writings of journalists after they had had the exposure facilitated by Samyak (c) Content analysis of Bihar’s newspaper writings on HIV and AIDS (d) Two photo-features, one by working and ex-s*x workers who were trained by Samyak in still photography and other by the editor of the book, Sanjay Dev.
4. Samyak Foundation has partnered with NACO (National AIDS Control Organization) and Udayan Sharma Foundation in a unique project called SANCHETANA. It consisted of a series of 11 sensitization workshops for HIV/AIDS among journalists of the entire Hindi-speaking regions of India comprising 13 states. The states were Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttaranchal, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra (Vidarbha region), Jammu & Kashmir and Delhi. Ten state level two-day residential workshops were organised in various state capitals and the 11th was the national symposium held in Delhi on April 7, 2007. The state workshops were attended by four chief Ministers, three Speakers, one Governor and Health Ministers of respective states. The national symposium was attended by the Union Minister Mr. Oscar Fernandes and Dr. S.Y.Quraishi, Election Commissioner of India apart from channel heads and senior editors of various news papers of these 13 states.
5. It concluded in October 2006 a media sensitization project done in collaboration with CHARCA, a joint UN system project. Under this project Samyak organized a two day media sensitization workshop at Kanpur with a special emphasis on reducing the vulnerabilities of young women in the context of HIV/AIDS. The project concluded with a national media symposium at Delhi on October 14, 2006. It was inauguration by Union Minister of Tourism & Culture Ambika Soni, addressed by top government officials, newspaper editors, news channel heads, senior journalists, experts and activists; and attended by nearly 50 journalists from six states. The speakers included Secretary Panchayati Raj Meenakshi Dutta Ghosh and Director General of NACO Sujata Rao.
6. In the field of translation, Samyak has done quite selected work, suiting to its areas of concern. Two books translated by Samyak from English to Hindi have been released by the PM. We translated an English book titled Gandhian Way into Hindi which was released by the Prime Minister on Oct. 2, 2008 at his residence. The Hindi title of the book is “Gandhi ka Path”. Another booklet translated by Samyak on HIV related issue was released by the PM few months prior to this release. The title of the book was “AIDS in Asia—Executive Summary”. There are few other quality books translated by us in Hindi on HIV related topics. Prominent among them is one book titled “HIV/AIDS IN NEWS-JOURNALISTS AS CATALYSTS.” It has been published by UNDP and Population Foundation of India, written by Usha Rai, Swapna Majumdar and Rimjhim Jain. The other important one is a toolkit for GIPA published by HIV/AIDS Alliance in India into Hindi. Some other books and manuals on HIV related issues have been translated by Samyak for CHARCA and TAHA-UNDP. We have also translated the summary report of UNDP titled “Countering Climate Change: Issues and Initiatives”.
7. Samyak has entered into an understanding with Bihar Khadi Gramodyog Sangh (BKGS), the parent body of all Khadi centres spread across the length and breadth of Bihar to revive Khadi and make the whole system more transparent, vigorous and modern without shunning its basic values and ethos. Samyak intends to take the HIV message deep to the village level with the help of the vast and deep network of Khadi linked artisans, more than 60 per cent of which are women. The first collaborative office of Samyak with BKGS has been opened at Saharsa and the second is shortly opening at Muzaffarpur.
8. Samyak is gravely concerned over the shrinking space of Indian languages when compared to English in this country and is determined to take some concrete and lasting steps in this regard. The groundwork preparation has already begun and one meeting of eminent personalities was held in Delhi last year. A second informal meeting was held in New Jersey (USA) recently.
9. Samyak has been helping some grassroots NGOs in content development for education, communications and publications and helping them build their capacities.
• Its expert helped design and implement two innovative projects run by DRI in and around Chitrakoot (falling both in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh). The projects were, (1) Creation of computer education software for rural education in Hindi, and (2) Mobile science lab for relevant to life education for rural children. Both the projects were highly appreciated by NCERT.
• It is working with the Akhil Bhartiya Samaj Seva Sansthan (ABSSS), Chitrakoot, in streamlining their education strategy and training their core team in decentralized content creation techniques. These would be implemented in the area around Chitrakoot, predominantly inhabited by a traditionally oppressed tribal community, Kol.
• It has trained the activists of SIDH, a Mussoorie (Uttarakhand) based NGO in writing and photography skills. A recent publication of SIDH has been designed and edited by the Samyak team. It is written by amateur, first time writers documenting the traditional wisdom and practices of the people of around 100 villages in the Danya region of Uttaranchal.
• Samyak incubated and helped create an NGO, Abhyuday in 2003. It runs an informal school for the children of rag-pickers in a slum in Mehrauli, near Qutub Minar, Delhi. It also works for income-generating activities by the tribal women living in Bhati mines area in Delhi. Activities include helping the women artisans in design, production and marketing of their produce, mainly fabrics and textiles based on their traditional skills.
• It is helping Parcham, a CBO based in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, working for the upliftment of the daughters of s*x workers and s*x workers themselves. Samyak is training the activists of Parcham in various documentation and computer skills apart from facilitating education for a group of nine girls hailing from the families of s*x workers. Samyak has also helped Parcham in getting two projects from TAHA-UNDP.
11 A one day National Workshop on Voluntary Action for Self-Reliant Villages: Vision India 2020 was jointly organized by Samyak and South Asia Partnership (India) on May 15, 2003 in Delhi.
12 Samyak partnered with the National Institute for Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCCD), an autonomous body under the Department of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Human Resource Development; in a national programme called Bharat Utkarsh. It comprised of state level two-day conferences of select voluntary organizations in selected Indian states. The purpose was to promote, strengthen, bring together and create synergies between various voluntary organizations in these states, their respective state governments, the central government and multi-lateral development support organizations. Such conferences were held in
• Madhya Pradesh (Indore),
• Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow),
• Assam (Guwahati),
• Karnataka (Bangalore),
• Maharashtra (Jalgaon),
• Uttaranchal (Dehradun) and
• Jharkhand (Ranchi). The Indore conference was inaugurated by the Vice President of India and attended among others by the Chief Minister and Dr. Brenda McSweeny, UNDP representative for South Asia. The Lucknow conference, held in October 2001, was inaugurated by the Prime Minister of India. Samyak was also the partner organization for this conference. Samyak produced daily newsletters of the Lucknow and the Bangalore conferences in this series apart from being part of the organizing team. Run by eminent and well-known journalists, Samyak has wide ranging contacts in media and development sector in the whole of northern, eastern and western India. It is fully equipped with the required infrastructure and human resources to undertake activities related with media and the social sectors. The Foundation has four trustees - Rahul Dev, senior journalist and well known television anchor; A N Mishra, Ex Vice Chancellor of Makhanlal Chaturvedi University of Journalism, Bhopal; Naveen Tewari, right to information activist and philanthropist; and Sanjay Dev, a senior journalist with extensive experience of grassroots developmental work in the fields of basic and science education and educating tribal children.
