Gender Studies

For over a decade Visthar has been working on gender sensitization of various constituencies and on mainstreaming a gender and social relations perspective in organizations and programmes. We have facilitated close to a hundred trainings focusing on diversity; enabling participants to understand and address power dynamics across difference, including caste, class, gender, disability, sexual orientation etc. We recognize the interlocking of identities and its implications for transformation and the need to deal with them in a comprehensive and coherent manner. The frameworks developed in the 80s and 90s need to be reformulated. We need to enable development practitioners equip themselves with perspectives and skills to deal with the emerging issues and concepts . With Gender, Diversity and Development as the overarching theme, our capacity building programme focuses on the following:

• Developing conceptual and analytical skills of CBOs, FBOs and other Civil Society Organizations.
• Understanding the recent debates on concepts of gender, third gender, masculinities, women’s rights and empowerment
• Understanding the implications of emerging issues like globalization, war on terror, communalism and disasters for gender relations and women’s rights.
• Understanding of issues of gender, spirituality and alternatives in development.
• Institutionalizing gender within organizations and programmes