Context – This is the foreword I wrote to the latest bi-annual report of We, The People. You can find the complete report here!
FYI: I represent the organization here and not as an individual.
We are in the 70th year of our constitution. And a huge chunk of the last one year went into planning Mission 70 – A yearlong campaign to remind citizens of the connect between constitutional values and our everyday life. In terms of political and democratic landscape, I see that we are at an inflection point. Our actions, as a collective society, in the next couple of years will define the next couple of decades to come.
We live in a world of connected spaces like Facebook and WhatsApp, which increased the spread of information and also misinformation within few minutes. Information related to topics of large importance – polarization, equality, demonetization, general elections – are being discussed on these platforms. Without the constitutional lens, it becomes impossible to form informed opinions on such topics. And hence the applied importance to Mission 70. Each of the areas we have focused upon will help citizens to understand what the values of the constitution stand for and how to not get swayed by misinformation.
For the same mission, we took a partner led approach. The launch of CitizenAdda, a consortium of CSOs working together to spread the values of the constitution, is a significant step in the journey of We, The People. In the years to come, we will work to make CitizenAdda as a platform that every CSOs would want to partner with and contribute.
We are also working closely with the Delhi Government on a campaign titled “Constitution at 70“. The objective here is very similar to Mission 70 but with the target audience as the students and teachers from government schools. The expected reach of this campaign is all of the 1100 government schools in Delhi. Such focus and scale are set to have a long-lasting impact in the way we look at Civics and Constitution at schools.
One last aspect I would like to mention here is our (WTP) finances. We have grown strong in this area year over year and last year was a major step towards sustainability. More than 60% of the incoming funds are from our programme fees. This also shows that our training partners respect the value in our content, methods and the impact.
All in all, it has been an exciting one year. And the next one year promises to be even better. Cheers!
The complete report can be download / read from here!