"The FST individual fellowship has helped me to work in 15 rural and remote villages under Betanipam and Madhuripathar Gaon Panchayats in the Dhemaji district. I have got a chance to organize awareness meetings, workshops, door to door visits, and advocacy with the related department. I have been able to acquire knowledge through the various trainings and workshops organized by FST from time to time. I thank FST for giving me the chance to bring changes in the communities with which I have been working."
FST’s mission is to invest in and promote the region’s abundant human, natural, cultural and creative resources; enable communities to be owners of the development processes; encourage rights based approaches and gender equality; channel youth energies for constructive social transformation in north east India. We do this through grant making and fellowship programmes to support creative approaches for solutions to critical issues of the region. Parallel efforts are made towards building capacities and knowledge through training and networking.
Past demonstration grant making (whilst being incubated by North East Network) saw FST extending support to 12 organisations and 12 individuals in 2007. FST charted its own course in 2008 and has extended its support to another 10 organisations and 6 individuals working across various thematic areas in March 2009. Yet another 8 organisations and 12 individuals have been selected for support in the October 2009.
FST appreciates the importance and significance of work of its partners and is confident of the potential of their individual and combined efforts in social transformation of the NE region. As FST moves into the next phase of reviewing and monitoring work done by partners, we find that while some amazing stories of change and transformation have in fact taken place on the ground, these are often not documented adequately or shared publicly. These stories of efforts, the successes and failures need to be noted and narrated so that others may know and learn and be inspired from this.
FST appreciates that writing long detailed reports is not easy. Some of us find it easier to do the work than write about it. However simple creative ways of documenting work and change can be used effectively. It may often be easier to just record conversations, take short video footage and photographs that animate our work and tell our story in different and innovative ways. All these will help partners to present and communicate their work better.
Based on the above and feedback from most of the partners to a questionnaire on training needs, FST has chosen the theme of Documentation and Communication for the Partners’ Workshop. The intention is to stress on the importance of documentation and also cover different aspects of documentation such as using photography, bogging, seeking out stories of change etc. FST also plans to link these ideas with its existing reporting formats and thereby facilitate compliance. It is hoped that a mix of theoretical and practical hands-on sessions will help FST and its partners to build and hone their skills in documentation and effective communication and this will no doubt help in sustaining ongoing programmes.
