Past Workshops
FAT organizes workshops on different technical skills for women under its different program initiatives. These workshops are for women only and are facilitated by women only. They are called Workshops by Women for Women. Below is an overview of workshops that FAT has organized since its inception.
School Girls Program
- Workshop on "Introduction to Website Designing" for girls of Muskaan Centre
Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, 16th - 19th June 2008
This 4-day workshop was conducted for a group of girls between the age group 16 to 20 staying in hostels managed by Muskaan, an NGO in Bhopal, and learning computers at the Muskaan Centre. The girls had basic knowledge of computers and some skills on desktop publishing, photo editing and using the Internet. After having developed the basic skills on computers, the girls wanted to learn website designing and work on a website for Muskaan. At this point FAT stepped in to conduct this workshop for the girls. The goal of the workshop was to introduce the girls to the basic concepts of designing websites, hence it was decided that a basic HTML website will be made. In the 4 days of workshop, the girls were given an introduction to websites, servers, domain names, hosting, html coding and using web-authoring tools. They also used their photo editing skills to create banners and icons for the website. The Muskaan staff prepared the website architecture and a website for Muskaan was developed within the workshop duration. Once the content of the website is ready, the girls will put the content into the website and the website will be made available at www.muskaan.org. The workshop was facilitated by Gayatri Buragohain. Click here to view workshop photos.
- Workshop on "Introduction to Computers and Internet" for urban poor girls
Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi, India, 2nd - 13th June 2008
Although most schools have computers and regular computer classes for the children, when we visited the bastis and spoke to the girls there we came to know that the students hardly get to use the computers. And even if they do get to use them sometimes, they are only allowed to paint in a program that their teacher runs for them. Most of the girls we spoke to had never used computers and thought that they can never learn to use a computer. A few who had used computers a couple of times before wanted to learn more but thought that using a computer was not easy. FAT organized a workshop for girls from the bastis of Lajpat Nagar (New Delhi) aiming to introduce them to computers and Internet. There were 17 participants in this workshop within the age group 12 to 18. Streched over 10 days, this workshop aimed at building the confidence amongst the girls to use computers on their own, right from connecting the different part of the computer, to starting the computer, to running the programs they want to use, to shutting down the computer. The girls were also introduced to Internet. Then the girls were given projects that they had to do using the Internet and a word processor. The workshop was facilitated by Gayatri Buragohain. Click here to view workshop photos.
Non-Professional Women Program
- Workshop on "The Internet and Web 2.0" for Mothers
Ahmedabad, India, 24th - 25th May 2008
Often it is seen that mothers, both homemakers and working, feel lost when their children and husbands talk about technology. Most mothers don't feel comfortable using the computer and the Internet. They feel embarassed to ask their children to teach them and are afraid of making mistakes. With these points in mind, a two-day workshop was organized by FAT and Zeal Education, Ahmedabad, for mothers to introduce them to the Internet and motivate them to use it. There were nine participants in the workshop and none of them had used Internet beyond Email and Instant Messaging, with most of them never having used the Internet at all. The workshop was facilitated by Sunayana Sitaram. Click here to view workshop photos.
Non-Techy Professional Women Program
- Workshop on "Introduction on Linux"
New Delhi, India, 11th April 2008
This one-day workshop aimed at introducing Linux and other Free/Open Source Sotware amongst women in the development sector. The workshop was meant for non-technical, ordinary users of computers. The participants were provided an overview of computer hardware, a general idea about Linux and the F/OSS movement, and a demonstration installation of different distributions of Linux on machines. Participants also got an opportunity to install Linux themselves and try their hand at using Linux. This workshop was facilitated by Hassath. Click here to view workshop photos.
- Workshop on "Organizing Resource Centers"
New Delhi, India, 4th April 2008
This was a one-day workshop that aimed at introducing the most popular library management software, CDS/ISIS, to women who work in different resource centers and need the basic skills on organizing resource centers. Participants were given hands-on experience in installing WINISIS, creating a database, using WINISIS and GENISIS, some features of WINISIS and connecting the resource center to their websites. Geetika Kumar Gupta facilitated the workshop. Click here to view workshop photos.
- Workshop on "Understanding How Websites Work"
New Delhi, India, 1st February 2008
This was a one-day workshop attended by women from different organizations based in New Delhi, Lucknow and Vadodara. The objective of the workshop was to equip women in the development sector with the basic understanding of how websites work and what are the different technicalities one ought to keep in mind while developing a website for one's organization. An overview of different website technologies was presented to the participants and some tips to maintain their own websites were also given. There were a few hands-on sessions on HTML coding, HTML editing tools and some CMS's. The workshop was facilitated by Gayatri Buragohain. Click here to view workshop photos.