Outreach meetings

Participants:CSO representatives, media persons, key state government officials, members of grassroots organisations, Panchayati Raj Institutions, village heads, community heads, aanganwadi workers, etc.
Objective: For gathering existing perceptions of people regarding issues relating to globalisation and WTO. Meetings in the two years will help ascertain the difference in the level of people’s understanding in the two years.
Timeframe: A total of five (5) meetings will be held in each state, three (3) in the first year and two (2) in the second year.
Methodology: A half-day to one-day hearing will be held in different parts of each state, the discussions will be documented and will serve as input for preparing the advocacy document. Video recording will also be done and case studies will also be prepared.

Each partner organisation would conduct five reachout meetings in its respective state to ensure better outreach of the project and to gather the views and concerns relating to globalisation and WTO existing of the people at the grassroots.

During the 4-day training seminar, the participants discussed whether a reachout meeting would serve the purpose of information dissemination or information gathering. It was stated that reachout meeting is a means and not an end. It is a tool to share experiences and to generate ideas. It was stated that the primary objective of any reachout meeting is to obtain the existing perception of people and also identify the anti-poor impact of the existing policies. It was decided that out of the five reachout meetings, three would be held in the first year of the project. These would serve the purpose of information gathering and identifying people’s perception of the trade and non-trade issues. Herein case studies can also be prepared. Further, an enabling environment can be created which will help share experiences. The last two meetings would be held in the second year of the project. These will help ascertain the difference or improvements in the peoples’ level of awareness regarding WTO and related issues.