Sohini Bhattacharya’s Post

When I was in Ashoka you constantly heard how Skoll Foundation supports many of Ashoka’s social entrepreneurs with mezennine funding. Since then the Skoll World Forum was on my to do list. When Breakthrough Trust won the Skoll Award in 2016 I almost ended up not going to the forum because of a torn passport issue but I did manage in the end. Since then I have been coming back to the #skollwf This year has been special what with hanging out with my The Wellbeing Project Cohort 5 friends, seeing some old ones and making new ones and spending some time plotting with Breakthrough’s founder Mallika Dutt Some of the things that stood out for me are the awardee convening moments - the way both Don Gips and Marla Benbow and their team bring out shared leadership, compassion and trust in their interactions and how the community team keeps the awardees at the centre. Thank you @Vanessa Wei and team. And of course some of these moments from the Forum: Leadership 101 with Dame Jacinda Ardern - What makes a "good" leader? sensitivity and compassion, traits that are too often dismissed and looking for a successor from day one. Shared values brought into focus by Wanjira Mathai of the World Resources Institute - Dignity, Peace, Wellbeing, Solidarity. The five new awardees including Piyush Tewari of Savelife Foundation from India. And kind of cool to be in a room with Amal and George Clooney who said his wife is a badass woman. There was a huge Indian contingent attending Skoll this year. I spent some time with some of them and what a fun bunch they are. And my two dear friends who kept me company from panels to plenaries and in between Aparna Hegde and Nayana Chowdhury - thank you. So grateful for being able to be in a space like this for a long time.

Do social entrepreneurs dance? Yes…..otherwise how would they be able to carry on the difficult and sometimes traumatic work they have to do everyday. Here I am with Karen Tse, Nicola Reindorp and Shivani Garg Patel dancing to the song we all helped write and set to music and sang at the Skoll World Forum 2024 Awardee Convening. What a lovely moment and what a great idea you all at Skoll Foundation. Solving some of the complex problems takes a toll and there has to be time for laughter and dancing. And our own song, of course!

When it comes to working with the government on systems change, co-creation and ownership are big gains. When we went to the education department of the government of Punjab in 2021, we wanted them to scale up our gender-equity curriculum, #TaaronkiToli - but the government had other plans. 2 years later we have incorporated a gender lens into the curriculum of middle school in close cooperation with the SCERT and worked on creating more progressive content. When the honourable Education Minister of Punjab, Harjot Bains, spoke to The Hindustan Times acknowledging the Chanan Rishman programme, there was total ownership by the state department. Breakthrough's Chanan Rishman programme is a unique gender transformative education approach that is being implemented in collaboration with the state government in 6,250 schools across Punjab. It is a "bold approach in challenging stereotypes, questioning biases and fostering a culture of equality within the school system." To read more, click here: https://rb.gy/h597le #systemschange #gendertransformativeeducation #chananrishman #genderequity #cocreation Breakthrough Trust Co-Impact Echidna Giving UN Girls' Education Initiative (UNGEI)

I wrote this in February this year and then thought many times before I posted it here. Dont take me wrong, I love my job, but I am allowed to take off sometime, no? #leadership #dream #nonprofit

I think it is so important to think this through. I personally think in social change work, one needs to focus on people within organisations too, and not just on the communities they work in, specially the frontline workers who are often the ones struggling with all the barriers that the mission can face. But the "professionalisation dilemma" also depends on the market forces from where you raise resources for your work. Since the larger sector is also focused around those market forces the pressure on a civil society organisation to be mindful of the people you serve as well as people within, work at scale and maintain quality and do it at a much lower cost takes its toll. What do you think? Aarti Mahadevan

Simple women who are great forces that support each other and many others in their battle against violence at home or in public and don’t let religion come in between. Young minds are being nudged to think differently and youth leaders are taking action against gender-based violence. A day with Breakthrough Trust’s Delhi program - kudos to Priyanka and her team, Krutika, Sarishti, Farman and others for working hard in the last 7 years to build this team of young leaders, get support from the community and have a group of feisty ladies supporting them. In Dabua and Sangam Vihar in NCR, we have run this program without much funding support since we didn’t want to leave the community post Covid. When asked what do you get from Breakthrough so that you keep coming to the centre, this young boy said - We learn to break orthodox traditions - रुढ़िवादी परंपरा को तोडना सीखता हूँ । #25yearsofBreakthrough #genderequity #youth

"Tell better stories and we'll have better representation." This has been a strong streak in our DNA for 25 years. And so celebrating our stepping into the 25th year, with a series of podcasts on feminist issues that bother us everyday. The first episode, Cine Sakhis, a fantastic conversation between Nithila Kanagasabai and Deepanjana Pal as they dove deep into the female friendships on the silver-screen and breaking down that age-old adage: is a woman truly another woman's worst enemy? was a rocking one. You can listen to ‘Cine Sakhis’ here - https://lnkd.in/gXFh7P2k This next one, is another absolute favourite - meet Neeti Palta and Ankita Bansal, the speakers for 'Sanskaari Naaris', the second episode of 'Keeping It Feminist: A Breakthrough Podcast! As you can probably tell from the title, this episode will be all about unpacking the trope of the 'ideal' woman - wife, girlfriend or whatever role patriarchy wants to box her into. But tropes aren't just tropes and have a very real impact on the lives of the many women who see them represented in cinema, or in how their families perceive them. If this sounds like something you want to engage with, tune in for this fantastic episode on 21 March 2024... this Thursday!  #keepingitfeminist #genderequality #gender #norms #normchange

Please join us in-person in Bangalore at the "Education. Inclusion. Dialogues" event, spearheaded by the incredible teams at Breakthrough Trust and ShikshaLokam At the event policymakers, academics, practitioners, and csos will come together to talk about the nitty-gritty of inclusive education. From looking at prevailing frameworks to ideating innovative strategies, this forum serves as a platform to discuss transformations in diversity and inclusion within education, including gender transformative systems. If this excites you drop us an email at arunava@inbreakthrough.org to reserve your spot. Looking forward to seeing you there. Prof. TV Kattimani | Dr. Protiva Kundu | Ajith Basu Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) | Agastya International Foundation #InclusionMatters #Education #Gender

Over the years Breakthrough Trust has been a regular at the CSW events that happen at New York over two weeks in March. Ably anchored all these years by colleague Urvashi Gandhi, I have been so happy to see colleagues speak at various events and represent problems and solutions on the issue of gender based violence along with the work of the organisation. This year, at #csw68 we are at 4 events, represented by our wonderful head of programs, Nayana Chowdhury. First, on March 11, the first day of CSW, in the afternoon, from 3.00 to 4.15 pm, we are in the ECOSOC Chamber at the United Nations HQ, at the high level side event organised by the European Union Delegation to the United Nations and the six other members of the steering committee, Morocco, Turkiye, Mongolia, New Zealand, Namibia, and Argentina, of the 96 member state-large Group of Friends for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls. Titled “Investing in the Prevention of Violence against Women and Girls”, the event will be moderated by the Under-secretary-general for Global Communicatuons, Melissa Fleming, the speakers include: H.E. Ms. Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women Mr. Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation Ms. Nayana Chowdhury, Senior Director of Breakthrough More details : https://lnkd.in/gCPaJhae The next one is a parallel event co-organised by Azad Foundation India and Breakthrough in collaboration with MenEngage Alliance and Equimundo: Center for Masculinities and Social Justice on 12th March at 4.30 pm at the Armenian Cultural Centre. The panel will discuss strategies for engaging men as allies in building a gender-just ecosystem for enhanced women’s economic participation, bringing in insights from Africa, Latin America, Europe and India. Register here for the in-person event: https://lnkd.in/gnEkKSp7 The next one is a side event at the UN plaza on 15th March at 10.30 am. Hosted by Girls First Fund , this is Good Money: Resourcing Community to Advance Gender Equality. And lastly an event hosted by our partner Global Innovation Fund and Grand Challenges Canada deliberating on the role of innovation in achieving gender equality on 15th March 12.30 pm at the UN Plaza. Please join the events if you can. Dolon Ganguly Meenu Vadera WhatWorks2PreventVAWG UN Women UN Women Asia and the Pacific

Join Breakthrough Trust ‘s senior director Sunita Menon to hear about our work on #prevention of #violenceagainstchildren in schools at the CIES conference 2024.