OVERVIEW:

Imagine spending a weekend with your favourite Wisdom Heroes/Sheroes, exchanging stories, discussing questions on swaraj, social change, relationships and the meaning of life! Imagine those heroes/sheroes sharing intimate episodes from their life journeys! Imagine them sharing their dreams and dilemmas about how they want the world to be! Imagine sharing with them your ideas and dreams and getting their feedback and support.
                   
The idea behind the Wisdom Weekend is to create a space to engage in intimate, free flowing dialogues with our elders and heroes/sheroes to understand how they have explored and understood the idea of Swaraj through various personal life experiences and how Swaraj is part of their work in the world. Usually we only get to interact with these people in busy conferences or listen to them on Youtube, but in this weekend retreat, we envision having a lot of time and space to get to know the hero/shero as a real person. We will also enjoy periods of quiet reflection, cooking together, and some fun surprises. So, bring your stories, dreams and dilemmas to share.

ABOUT THE WISDOM SHERO:

Kamla Bhasin is a developmental feminist activist, poet, author and social scientist. Bhasin’s work, that began in 1970, focuses on gender, education, human development and the media. She lives in New Delhi, India. She is best known for her work with Sangat - A Feminist Network and for her poem Kyunki main ladki hoon, mujhe padhna hai. In 1995, she recited a refurbished, feminist version of the popular poem Azadi (Freedom) in a conference. She is also the South Asia coordinator of One Billion Rising.

She resigned from her job at the U.N. in 2002, to work with Sangat, of which she is a founder member and Adviser.She believes in a form of advocacy that combines feminist theory and community action. She has worked with underprivileged women from tribal and working communities, often using posters, plays and other non literary methods to get through to communities with low literacy rates. She has always maintained that in order to usher effective change, sloganeering must be accompanied by community mobilization.

SUGGESTED CONTRIBUTION:

This event is offered to you in the spirit of gift culture. Like many spaces across India and around the world, Swaraj University and the Swapathgami Network have been experimenting and working with rethinking our lifestyles and our relationship with ourselves, our work, our resources and our communities. We are questioning, challenging and experimenting with our institutionalized notions of money. So we welcome you to join our experiment and explore your relationship with money and community.

Suggested Contribution is Rs 4000, learning scholarships are available to those who need them. And if you can, your additional contribution will help support the participation of others.