Project OBO: Our Bodies, (Our) Opinions

Project OBO: Our Bodies, (Our) Opinions is a youth-led, youth focused non-governmental organisation based in Kolkata, India, aimed at creating positive spaces for young people to come together to discuss body-centric issues through conversation, media and art in an uninhibited, safe manner. OBO was founded by Mirna Guha, aged 22 at the time, in 2009. OBO's stated purpose is to provide young people of Kolkata with a platform to explore, develop and showcase their talents, and then encourages them to use those talents to spread awareness on the issues such as the body, sexual identity, gender diversity, personal safety (including self defence), child abuse, domestic abuse, sexual harassment, sexually transmitted disease, etc. Through media such as poetry, music, movement, dance, painting, photography, film, and other fine arts, during a series of workshops, OBO's intent is to train participants to become youth leaders who in turn, can train other youngsters to do the same, and pass on its philosophy.
Origin
In 2009, October, Start Up! an incubator for social enterprises in Delhi and Anjali, an organisation that works on mental health in Kolkata, collaborated to form "Lattoo Academy" a week-long residential training institute for young social changemakers. At the end of training period, that covered a wide variety of social issues, around 20 participants, including Mirna Guha, were asked to design their own projects which would address a social issue that they personally deeply cared about. The ideas the organisers judged the best were awarded a Lattoo Fellowship from the Sri Ratan Tata Trust to enable the participants to start implementing their ideas.
After a three-month-long selection procedure, Guha was awarded the fellowship. Project OBO was founded by Mirna Guha in 2009 as a result of this fellowship. In an interview with Sex, Etc., Guha explained that her project was inspired by a realisation that sexual abuse is commonplace, and how this affects young boys and girls in India, and the world at large. In an interview with Idealist.org, Guha spoke of her frustration with how, in her opinion, anything centered on the subject of sex was treated as taboo in much of India, and she felt she needed to do something to challenge that. This frustration was the inspiration behind Project OBO.
Chronological account of workshops and events
*23 August 2009: First Open OBO Workshop
*29 August 2009: Second OBO Open Workshop
*13 September 2009: A follow-up workshop for a group of participants from the first two open workshops on Child Sexual Abuse awareness and dealing with disclosure.
*18 September 2009: A follow-up workshop for a group of participants from the first two open workshops, on Sexual Harassment/Self Defence with Ms. Ayesha Sinha
*19 September 2009: The Third OBO Open Workshop
*4 Oct 2009: OBO’s Child Sexual Abuse awareness workshop with participants from the second and third open workshops. (4-hour workshop)
*10 Oct 2009: OBO’s Sexual Identity workshop with 11 participants from the first three open workshops.
*18 December 2009: The OBO Photography Workshop, to enable participants to use their latent photography skills to express their opinions about body/sexuality centric issues.
*2 January 2010: The Project OBO Art Exhibition
*30 January 2010: The Project OBO Self Defence Workshop for women between the age of 14-23, with Sutapa Patra, a Wenildo (feminist methodology of selfdefence). Patra is also a Changelooms Fellow and founder of an organisation called "Amader Prerana", in Sagar Islands, West Bengal, India. "Amader Prerana" has many young volunteers, who work in their communities to stop violence against women. This introductory workshop was of a duration of 4 hours and the participants were put through the introductory steps of self defence through the use of discussion, role-plays and the like. Interested participants from this workshop were invited to enrol in a three-day intensive training program with Patra.
*26 January 2010 at 00:00, to 16 February 2010 at 23:55: OBO Short Film Competition. Participants were asked to make short films on any language of their choice, uses any technology available to them on the following themes:
**PINK (Sexuality)
**MAN.ENOUGH (Masculinity)
**WHOSE BODY IS MY BODY? (Body and Control)
**ERECT (Disability)
The participants were allowed to shoot their films in any format (digibeta, hdv, dvcam, dv, etc.) and with any device (professional cameras, consumer handycams, mobile phones, etc.) and could be fictional, documentary or experimental in nature.
*30 April 2010:Screening of participant entries to the Project OBO short film-making competition; Film Screening on Disability: Shuktara by Samimitra Das and Bullets and Butterflies by Sushmit Ghosh; Question and Answer Sessions; Panel discussion on the representation of disability in Bollywood, Short talk by Ms. Swati Chatterjee from "Sannidhhya" on Working on Issues of Deformity
*1 May: "Camera Obscura", a film making workshop with independent film maker and director of Bullets and Butterflies, Sushmit Ghosh; Film Screening on Sexuality: Ma Vie En Rose by Alain Berliner
*2 May: Film Screening on Body and Control: Sea in the Blood by Richard Fung; Film Screening on Masculinity: TransAmerica by Duncan Tucker, by Kimberley Peirce
Awards
OBO was shortlisted for the Changelooms Award which recognises projects of potential by a Delhi organisation called Pravah.

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