Thank you for your detailed description of what you and RAHI Foundation have been doing during the past thirteen years to end incest and child sexual abuse in India. Your courage, the broad range of your activities, your ongoing research, and the variety of your operational partnerships stand as inspirations to us all!
We all can learn a great from you.
Your outreach and educational efforts are likely to elicit a considerable amount of fear, defensiveness, and opposition among some of the people whose professional or personal lives are challenged by what you are doing. In your current and future activities, in youth organizations, colleges, and other settings, it is likely that some participants in group sessions will behave in domineering ways.
A fundamental issue comes immediately to mind, about which my colleagues and I seek comments from others whenever we can create the opportunity to do so.
In your work as a teacher, how do you deal with the central question that faces all of us who are committed to ending violence and changing the world by working with people in non-violent ways: How shall we be directive in our work without being authoritarian or manipulative? To put it in other terms, in the intersection between theory and practice, if we want to help people develop a commitment to interacting in collaborative rather than authoritarian ways, how shall we structure our learning groups so that everyone understands our goals and no one is dominated, demeaned, or domesticated by our practice? What guidelines do you propose in your learning groups, for example, for dealing with a situation in which one member interrupts another? In dealing with an instance of domination by one group member over another, how shall we model the precept to do naught unto others that we would not have them do unto us (Mahabharata 5, 15, 17), or the teaching that we must be the change that we wish to see in the world (M.K. Gandhi)?
Again, please accept my expression of appreciation for what you are doing and for sharing what you are doing. I shall be grateful for the opportunity to continue learning from you.
Warmly,
Herman M. Frankel, M.D.
Building Caring Families
www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/167
frankelh@earthlink.net
Thank you for this entry. Your work is innovative and very audacious.
You will be interested to know that less than 6% of all calls made to CHILDLINE (a 24-hour Indian helpline for children in distress) in the last ten years have reported CSA --- 6% of 10 million calls! There probably could not be greater statistical validation that CSA/incest are the most under-reported child rights violations in India. What plans do RAHI and its partner have to extend awareness and build new voices against CSA/Incest in mofussil and rural areas?
I am also interested in knowing if sharp child protection policies with strong punitive measures against perpetrators of incest and CSA will go a long way in reducing violence within families? Has RAHI or other groups engaged in integrating CSA/Incest more into child protection laws in the country? What has been the experience of engaging with, and educating policy makers?
03/20/07 11:15am PDT
Dear Anuja Gupta:
Thank you for your detailed description of what you and RAHI Foundation have been doing during the past thirteen years to end incest and child sexual abuse in India. Your courage, the broad range of your activities, your ongoing research, and the variety of your operational partnerships stand as inspirations to us all!
We all can learn a great from you.
Your outreach and educational efforts are likely to elicit a considerable amount of fear, defensiveness, and opposition among some of the people whose professional or personal lives are challenged by what you are doing. In your current and future activities, in youth organizations, colleges, and other settings, it is likely that some participants in group sessions will behave in domineering ways.
A fundamental issue comes immediately to mind, about which my colleagues and I seek comments from others whenever we can create the opportunity to do so.
In your work as a teacher, how do you deal with the central question that faces all of us who are committed to ending violence and changing the world by working with people in non-violent ways: How shall we be directive in our work without being authoritarian or manipulative? To put it in other terms, in the intersection between theory and practice, if we want to help people develop a commitment to interacting in collaborative rather than authoritarian ways, how shall we structure our learning groups so that everyone understands our goals and no one is dominated, demeaned, or domesticated by our practice? What guidelines do you propose in your learning groups, for example, for dealing with a situation in which one member interrupts another? In dealing with an instance of domination by one group member over another, how shall we model the precept to do naught unto others that we would not have them do unto us (Mahabharata 5, 15, 17), or the teaching that we must be the change that we wish to see in the world (M.K. Gandhi)?
Again, please accept my expression of appreciation for what you are doing and for sharing what you are doing. I shall be grateful for the opportunity to continue learning from you.
Warmly,
Herman M. Frankel, M.D.
Building Caring Families
www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/167
frankelh@earthlink.net
Thank you for this entry. Your work is innovative and very audacious.
You will be interested to know that less than 6% of all calls made to CHILDLINE (a 24-hour Indian helpline for children in distress) in the last ten years have reported CSA --- 6% of 10 million calls! There probably could not be greater statistical validation that CSA/incest are the most under-reported child rights violations in India. What plans do RAHI and its partner have to extend awareness and build new voices against CSA/Incest in mofussil and rural areas?
I am also interested in knowing if sharp child protection policies with strong punitive measures against perpetrators of incest and CSA will go a long way in reducing violence within families? Has RAHI or other groups engaged in integrating CSA/Incest more into child protection laws in the country? What has been the experience of engaging with, and educating policy makers?