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SAFE Fellowship

Deadline Missed
Overview

The Safe Abortion For Everyone (SAFE) programme of TYPF offers fellowship programme to equip young people with knowledge, fact-based information and advocacy around abortion. Under this, we build the capacity of young people especially from marginalised communities across diverse geographies including Kerala and Assam. Our immersive fellowship model equips them to create community-specific advocacy interventions on abortion, and promote sensitivity in order to challenge prevailing fear, misinformation, myths, and stigmas around abortion-related healthcare in India.

Geographical Distribution Visualized using below data

Fellowship Models

We capacitate our fellows on engaging with the abortion landscape and discourse in India through several different models:

Community Advocacy

Under this model, fellows were expected to research and report on the information and data collected from specific communities. These were either the fellows’ own community or the community they have been working with. The fellows explored the various social inhibitions attached to abortion-related healthcare, the public/private services available, the distinct kinds of impediments (financial, cultural, health risks/nutrition) that the chosen community faces vis-a-vis access to abortion facilities, understanding the gaps in the policy and advocacy interventions taken up by local/primary health centres/governing bodies, and recommending strategies to mitigate them.

Awareness Generation

Fellows focused on making available information around abortion accessible to the public. They scoped and researched popular myths and misconceptions around abortion and created posters,  infographics, and videos to convey the fact-checked information in an accessible format in vernacular language.

Media Campaigning

The fellows engaged with news, cinema, and TV shows, to critically examine mass media portrayals of abortion and its impact on people’s understanding. They wrote articles and created podcast series on abortion advocacy in India, laws, and legislation, personal narratives, and intersectionality in abortion to debunk and generate nuanced perspective on the issue.

Evidence Generation

This fellowship model was designed to have a capacity-building component through an online course followed by undertaking 3 specific tasks:

  • Extract public data around approved MTP facilities in the district (involved filing of RTI petitions)
  • Audit a few nearby health facilities using mystery client methodology to assess youth-friendliness of abortion counseling services
  • Based on findings/experience, develop and implement an advocacy plan towards advancing access to safe abortion
Fellows in this cohort:
  • Abi Babu (Kollam, Kerala)
  • Angel Mary Augustine (Ernakulam, Kerala)
  • Annesha Mahanta (Nagaon, Assam)
  • Biraja Nandan Mishra (Khorda, Odisha)
  • Dorin Dolkar (Sikkim)
  • Fatima Hamid (Darjeeling, West Bengal)
  • Pankhi Rani Borah (Dibrugarh, Assam)
  • Shrinidhi Deshmukh (Pune, Maharashtra)
  • Tanuz Kalita (Kamrup Metro, Assam)
  • Tushar Singh Bodwal (Rupnagar, Punjab)
Testimonials

SAFE fellowship has helped me to understand the abortion discourse in India with clarity and also pushed me to action. I got the opportunity to discuss and polish my knowledge with the help of experts from different walks and the encouragement to further it as well as spread it.

–  Athira P R

Outputs of Fellows
Item #1

Output Name: Fellowship Report of Cohort II

Fellow Name: Compiled and written by Ragini Bordoloi

Fellowship Model: Evidence Generation

Output Description: The report describes the processes and overview of the second cohort of SAFE Fellowship. The fellows extracted public data to assess the availability of abortion services and conducted youth-friendliness audits in their nearby health facilities. Based on their immersive experience, they created and executed advocacy actions.

Item #2

Output Name: Assessing Youth-Friendliness of Abortion Services  

Fellow Name: Compiled and written by Ragini Bordoloi

Fellowship Model: Evidence Generation

Output Description: Analysis report on the youth-led audits conducted by fellows of 54 abortion facilities across 7 states of India

 

Community Advocacy Outputs 
Item #3

Output Name: Sensitisation Workshop Module for ASHA workers
Fellow Name: Dimple Mogha ( East Delhi, NCT)
Fellowship Model: Community Advocacy
Output Description: Dimple undertook advocacy efforts and successfully sought formal permission from the Department of Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of Delhi NCT. Then, she developed a training module with session plan for the ASHA sensitisation workshop in Hindi.

Item #4

Output Name: Survey on awareness around abortion, and petitition campaign
Fellow Name: Vineet Prakash (Sasaram, Bihar)
Fellowship Model: Community Advocacy
Output Description: Vineet conducted a survey about awareness around abortion among 100 young people in Sasaram district of Bihar. Based on the findings, he mobilised for a petition campaign asking for abortion awareness programmes in the district. He also drafted letters and met key stakeholders such as MPs, MLAs and DMs currently working in the district.

His work got featured in vernacular news daily too:
https://epaper.livehindustan.com/Home/ShareArticle?OrgId=18886fa6e4d&imageview=0

 

Item #5

Output Name: Policy Document to Sensitize Parliamentarians on Medical Termination of Pregnancy
Fellow Name: Anandita Pathak (Guwahati, Assam)
Fellowship Model: Community Advocacy
Output Description: Anandita analysed parliamentary debates around the issue of abortion during key timelines of 1969, 1971, 2002, 2020 and 2021 (whenever the MTP Act and its amendment bills were introduced) to assess the discourses promulgated by the parliamentarians. Based on the analysis, she has drafted an analytical report to highlight the problematic narratives, explain why they are problematic and suggest alternative narratives which foregrounds a rights-based approach towards pregnant persons.

 

Awareness Generation 
Item # 6

Output Name: IEC materials in Malayalam
Fellow Name: Athira P R (Idukki, Kerala)
Fellowship Model: Awareness Generation
Output Description: Athira undertook an initiative to destigmatize abortion, encourage open discussions, and make local-public institutions avenues of conversations on abortion in the Idukki district of Kerala. Athira developed posters that were put up in Gender Resource Centres and pamphlets (including details of available MTP centers) which were distributed through Kudumbashree members and ASHAs.

Item #7

Output Name: Social Media Campaign and Informational Videos on Sex Worker’s Access to Abortion Services
Fellow Name: Krishanu and Jasleen Kaur (Delhi)
Fellowship Model:
Output Description: Krishanu and Jasleen collaboratively worked on a single project centering the concerns of sex workers around access to abortion. They conducted a series of interviews with sex workers from 5 states (Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Delhi) to inform content for a social media campaign. They also created an informational WhatsApp shareable video in Hindi for sex workers.

 

Media Campaigning 
Item #8

Output Name: Dissecting Anti-Abortion Mentality In Malayalam Cinema Through ‘Kana Kanmani’ & ‘Aval’

Fellow Name: Devika Jayan (Thiruvanthapuram, Kerala)
Fellowship Model: Media
Output Description: Devika looked into the portrayal of the issue of abortion in Malayalam cinema by analysing 4 films (viz. Notebook, Kanakanmani, Rockstar, Aval). Devika also interviewed the director of ‘Aval’ and prepared an article based on it. Devika’s article was published on the Feminism in India portal.

Item #9

Output Name: Articles on the representation of abortion in popular media
Fellow Name: Nayla Khwaja (Delhi)
Fellowship Model: Media
Output Description: Nayla examined the language, terminology and imagery, discursive associations, nature of information passed, perspectives and impacts of the way abortion is represented in Indian Cinema, Television Programs and News Media (both Hindi and English) in India. Based on the analyses, Nayla wrote a series of articles under different themes on such problematic representations.

Nayla’s analyses were published on multiple portals:
Article 1 | Article 2 | Article 3 | Article 4 | Article 5

 

Last date for application
July 25, 2021

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