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This week was my final week at @FeminismInIndia, and I have Feelings™. I joined FII back in 2017, and was its first full-time employee, so I'm obvs quite attached 
. As Campaign Lead, I got to work on some v cool stuff. This is a thread of work I'm most proud of having done.
. As Campaign Lead, I got to work on some v cool stuff. This is a thread of work I'm most proud of having done.
Our first campaign was #ThePadEffect, on sustainable menstruation. I was in the middle of making a video for this campaign when I decided to switch to menstrual cups myself, which was honestly life changing!
(Quite proud of my gif game in this thread
) https://twitter.com/FeminismInIndia/status/859369294773198848
(Quite proud of my gif game in this thread
) https://twitter.com/FeminismInIndia/status/859369294773198848
The campaign I put in the most heart and soul into was definitely the #AbortionMeraHaq campaign with @asapasia. It came on the heels of attending an Abortion Advocacy Training Institute by ASAP, and I was filled with ideas and resources for a digital advocacy campaign.
It was exhausting, because I went way overboard with the amount of content I created for that campaign, but super, super worth it. I am really proud of my work on this 
.
(Check out this thread, which contains a lot of other sub-threads, because please.) https://twitter.com/FeminismInIndia/status/1133735751894495232
.(Check out this thread, which contains a lot of other sub-threads, because please.) https://twitter.com/FeminismInIndia/status/1133735751894495232
There were also a lot of fun campaigns in the middle, like the #UnstereotypeCinema campaign with @OxfamIndia, in which I learned way more about sexist Indian cinema than I cared to know (the campaign won an award though! )... https://twitter.com/FeminismInIndia/status/1061118884575633409
)... https://twitter.com/FeminismInIndia/status/1061118884575633409
...and the #JustNotInterested campaign with @Tinder about consent and rejection, where scores of people wrote in to me about their dating experiences.
A big part of campaigns were our IG chats, where people would DM us their stories, that we would anonymise on request and share.
A big part of campaigns were our IG chats, where people would DM us their stories, that we would anonymise on request and share.
This was one of the most intimate and touching parts of my job. I was always so humbled that people entrusted us with their experiences, sometimes extremely personal ones. Sometimes, they'd say that they'd never shared this story with anyone else before.
A campaign in which I received a huge number of these personal stories was the #MyGynaecStory campaign with @Haiyya_Act, which looked at how unmarried women faced stigma at the gynaecologist. Before Haiyya started talking about this, I didn't ever really think about this issue. +
But when we started this campaign, the sheer volume of women who wrote in with stories of how they'd been shamed, or denied treatment, just because they were unmarried, was ridiculous. We hosted a social media storm one day and ~100 women participated 
. https://twitter.com/i/events/1145681298846912514
. https://twitter.com/i/events/1145681298846912514
But the project that I got the most invested in, that you've probably seen on my TL before, is the #GBVinMedia Toolkit I created, which is on how the media can ethically and sensitively report gender-based violence (GBV), like rape. https://twitter.com/asmitaghosh18/status/1164825383956430848
I got to create this toolkit thanks to @WomenDeliver, which picked me to be a Women Deliver Young Leader in 2018, and then approved two small grant apps to work on the creation & dissemination of this toolkit. So thanks, @YouthDeliver!
The toolkit is at: http://bit.ly/GBVinMedia
The toolkit is at: http://bit.ly/GBVinMedia
After the toolkit was released, I also turned it into a digital advocacy campaign, because who is going to sit and read the thirty page toolkit that I spent months researching and writing, right???? (:P)
Here are some of the posters we put out during the #GBVinMedia campaign!
Here are some of the posters we put out during the #GBVinMedia campaign!
The highlight of #GBVinMedia came at the very end. One of the key recommendations of the toolkit was that the media change the images it used when it reported rape.
We called on artists to help create alternative images the media could use instead. https://twitter.com/FeminismInIndia/status/1218118264338952192
We called on artists to help create alternative images the media could use instead. https://twitter.com/FeminismInIndia/status/1218118264338952192
And they delivered! We got 55 images, of which we picked 10, to create a library of images that the media could download freely. I've already seen a bunch of platforms, including Scroll, The New Indian Express, EPW and Hindustan Times use these images. 
https://twitter.com/FeminismInIndia/status/1230536221270663168
https://twitter.com/FeminismInIndia/status/1230536221270663168
So that is it for me crowing about myself. Thank you for getting this far, if you did! Working at FII for the past three and a half years has been life-changing, to say the least. It's shaped who I am, as a person. Thank you @japna_p for creating this space!
And thank you to the BRILLIANT women I've worked with as colleagues & friends – @Doobie_Dayan, @ammu1221, @_senpai_i, @The_Silly_Wonka, @pant_manasi, @madulithaosen! Not to mention our incredible campaign partners, from whose work I've learned & grown so much as a feminist.
I'm taking some time to figure out what's next for me. In the meantime, I'll be doing comms consulting & sensitivity readings as a freelancer. So if you need help with a digital advocacy campaign, or a second set of eyes to gauge if your content has sensitive language, hit me up!
