Students' Social Reform Initiative (SSRI)
The Students’ Social Reform Initiative (SSRI) provides a platform for students who are
committed to reaching out to the wider community. Their activities aim at bringing about
change and transformation in the lives of many others. Using the means of politics,
history and current affairs, SSRI believes in building individuals that are active agents of
social change in our society.
This year SSRI went a step ahead and tried to broaden the horizon of our students and
have them actively engage with the world of social change and what it means to be an
individual living in these times. We used the means of art, photography, interactions
with activists, advocates and members of our community to help our members be better
citizens or begin their journey of social reform and change.
This year we organised as many as 12, both through the portal of Instagram as well as
interactive events on Zoom.
These Zoom events began with a Charcha (discussion) session on the 5th of
September, where we introduced our First-Year students to SSRI and had them
express what the Covid Lockdown was like for them. The event included candid
interactions between the Second-Year and First-Year Students, poetry recitations,
story-telling about how harrowing the past few months had been as well as just a
general feeling of togetherness between all the SSRI members.
This event was followed by the launch of the Sophia Queer Collectives page on
Instagram. This separate page was launched to keep all the activities of the queer
collective together and to create a thriving community of the SQC. The page put out
plenty of informative posts about topics such as, “The Significance of the ‘+’ sign in
LBTQIA+”, the breakdown of the extremely controversial film, “Laxmi”, Media
Representation of the LGBTQIA+ community, and many more such interesting topics.
September also saw the launch of the Humans of Sophia: Home Edition. This new
series of Humans of Sophia included self-portraits taken by our very own students of
Sophia College. The pictures were supposed to be taken by themselves, in the safety of
their homes and photographing these safe spaces. We got several entries, each more
beautiful and entrancing than the other. These pictures were accompanied by a short
writeup that expressed our students’ inner thoughts and experiences that they wanted
to share.
In October, we launched two more new online initiatives called Kranti: Voices of
Change and So Now We Know. Through the Kranti series, SSRI talked about social
reformers and people who have significantly contributed to change in the past and the
present.
The series was kickstarted with Savitribai Phule and Fatima Begum. Followed by Kiruba
Munusamy and Chandrashekar Azad to bring forward the issues of caste and to amplify
Dalit voices. Further, Professor Shoma Sen, Ruth Manorama, Anna Julia Cooper and
Fannie Lou Hamer have been covered as of October.
On October 6th, So Now We Know was started. SNWK was The series included
infographic posts based on current events. The posts summarised what was happening
in the country and why we must be aware of the events. The topics included, the
Hathras Rape Case of October 2020, the UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevent Act) and
the arrests taking place under the act of activists and teachers, The Manual Scavenging
Act, The Transgender Protection Act and many more such pressing issues that are of
crucial importance to our country.
In a first, on the 27th of October, Kranti held its first interactive meeting with Anti
Caste activist Manisha Mashaal. The event was held to bring to the spotlight the vital
conversation around Dalit oppression and discrimination in Indian society. Our guest
Manisha Mashaal, touched upon several issues faced by Dalits in India and specifically
Dalit women. She began by acknowledging the lack of publication of Dalit struggle for
freedom, from the British and oppressive caste system in school textbooks which gives
rise to the widespread ignorance of Dalit oppression.
In November, two online Instagram Story Series were initiated. Point Out the
Problem (POTP) and This Month in History. Both the series took place on
Instagram’s story feature. POTP showed problematic and controversial scenes from old
films, TV shows and music videos that are beloved by people from all around the world
and asked them to guess what was the problem with the piece of pop culture. The
series was interactive and garnered a lot of attention and answers. The History series
was a quiz series that asked questions about important events in the past and then
explained in detail what the significance of these historical events was to us today.
On 21st November 2020, Sophia Queer Collective in collaboration with the
International Relations Club held a webinar/panel discussion via Zoom which pertained
to discussing the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill of 2019 and how it has
impacted the transgender community. The panellists included Anjali Siroya, Ankan
Biswas, and Rachana Mudraboyina.
December and January was a hiatus period due to examinations and their preparation.
SSRI resumed working from the 15th of January. The online series of POTP and the
history quiz continued as is. The preparation for Mizaaj, the cultural amalgamation of all
the flagship events of the clubs of Sophia College took place from January.
On 20th February, SSRI held its flagship event for the year called, Eating Your
Beliefs, a movie screening and panel discussion on the Politics of Food in India. The
panellists included renowned historian, Dr Kurush Dalal. Filmmakers, Ghania Siddique,
Talat Shakeel, Ananyaa Gaur, and Atul Anand. The event was a grand success with as
many as 150 participants from 12 colleges around India.
March was the last month for the functioning of the club. On the 13th of March, SSRI
organised the Gender Sensitization Workshop with NGO Rohaa. The workshop
informed the audience regarding the difference between gender, sex and sexuality, the
intricacies of gender bias, the significance and importance of gender empathy,
information regarding the importance of consent and actions that can be taken if
consent is violated amongst other things.
On the 20th of March, a session on Fast Fashion and Consumerism was organised
with resource persons, Apoorva Vijh and Ishi Srivastava, who were teachers from NIFT
and Pearl Academy Mumbai. They educated our students on the effects and fast
fashion and its impact on the environment.
24th March was the last event of SSRI for the year 2020-21. SSRI helped in organising
the pre-screening or Forward of the Kashish International Queer Film Festival,
along with the Department of Education.