Margrit Hugentobler on the Ekta Europe network, Lidköping: transcript

Key points

• Ekta Europe was brought together by Rajagopal about 15 years ago, reversing the usual pattern where northern organizations decide to support southern initiatives.
• The network grew out of a meeting in southern India attended by long-standing members from the UK, France and elsewhere.
• She calls herself the president but says she was never elected, and describes the group as loose with no fixed organization.
• Members meet twice a year, in spring and fall, which she compares to a class reunion.
• Members decide on joint actions, share what each organization does, and support Ekta Parishat's non-violence, mobilization and conscientization work.
• She asks for Swedish support for a global action in 2020 that has already started in India, then hands over to Jill and Rajagopal.

Chapters

1. 0:00How Rajagopal brought Ekta Europe together
2. 0:35A loose network that meets twice a year
3. 1:20Joint actions and support for Ekta Parishat
4. 1:56The 2020 global action and a call for support

Full transcript

0:00We are really kind of a strange group, this Ekta Europe group, because we were being brought together basically by Rajagopal some 15 years ago and it's quite unusual. Usually, you know, the development organizations in the, quote, North, they become involved and they decide we should support, you know, this initiative in the South, which Rajagopal, it was the other way around. He had established all these contacts in different countries in Europe and abroad and he brought us together.

0:35It was his secret plan in the center in southern India and slowly out of this meeting where some of the old timers who are still with us from the UK, from France, etc. were also there that this network called Ektar Europe developed. So we are a funny organization. I'm the president. I've never been elected. we don't know how they do it in france tonight but um so we are a very loose group and funnily enough without really a fixed organization people always insist that they want to meet twice a year it's a little bit like a class reunion which sometimes maybe is not so good but we meet in the spring and in the fall.

1:20And we come and we decide on some joint action we want to do and we want to inform each other about what every organization does. Some of our organizations have different tasks like I have some colleagues here also from France. They support different actions in their countries, but they also support the work of Ekta Parishat and the non-violence action that Ekta Parishat stands for in terms of its mobilization and conscientization work.

1:56Work you will hear much more about this and this is also the part. I think that has brought our organization Organizations together in this loose Network, which is a very important group as we are embarking quite ambitiously on a global action in the year 2020 which is has already started in India where we want to change the world and and I tell you something we need you we need your support because you know we can't do it without Sweden so with this I would like to pass on the word to Jill who will tell you more about this J.J. Ghat as it is developing and what we are planning it's really also exciting and then Rajagopal will get the word to talk

Source and licence

Recording: File:Margrit Hugentobler's speech, Lidköping, Sweden.webm by Yann Forget (2017-04-25), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY 3.0.

The transcript is machine speech-to-text by the TidyTools Audio & video transcriber; the summary, key points and chapters were written by Claude from that transcript. Both may contain errors: check the recording before quoting it.