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| About Us |
| A brief historical note |
| Indian Social Institute, Bangalore was established in 1963 with training as its main thrust for the purpose of building up the capacity of social activists in the voluntary sector as well as in people’s movements. Irrespective of caste, creed and class, the trainees came from different parts of India, some even from Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. |
 Although it is a national Institute with a South Asian perspective, special attention is given to the four southern States in India in the matter of networking with activists and people’s organizations, selection of trainees, programmes implemented, issues and concerns responded to, etc.
A Glance at the Past: The Institute has been re-defining its identity and role periodically according to changed situations and new trends. Thus its past journey was marked by different phases: |
In 1960s the Institute aimed at training development workers by imparting knowledge and skills in community development, co-operatives, etc. This was in keeping with the developmental paradigm, then prevalent in the country. In 1970s the training content was shifted from community development to conscientization and organization in order to enable people to become active participants in the development process. Non-formal education was viewed not only as a tool,
but also as the very process that could raise and deepen this consciousness. During the latter part of 70s, perceiving social structures as militating against the liberation of the oppressed, the Institute found the need of introducing structural analysis in its training programmes, thereby facilitating people’s organizations along class lines. In 1980s the training emphasized political action and the need to join hands with broader political forces engaged in the struggles of the working class.
The focal point in 1990s in line with the stated goal of Socialism, Secularism and Democracy,
the focus of all the programmes was People’s Movements in particular (1) indigenous people’s movements – of dalit, tribal and ethnic origins, (2) women and working class movements,
and (3) democratic and secular forces. With this in mind the Institute has been taking efforts – (1) to collaborate with macro-social forces, (2) to network with sectoral democratic movements such as environment and consumer movements, and (3) to align with the marginalized people for
their empowerment. |
| Training was the main feature, with documentation service and field follow-ups. In this respect, reaching out to activists in the field served not only as a follow-up of the training programmes, but also helped the Institute to maintain its activist and field orientation. |
| In 2000, the Institute started the Human Rights Unit focusing on campaign and advocacy at national and international level. With emphasis on people’s movement, in 2001 the institute initiated the Outreach Programmes which is an important phase in the history of ISI. |
| The basic objective of the Outreach programme is to strengthen people’s organisations and movements of marginalised groups. This is done mainly through training programmes and capacity building in vernacular conducted in collaboration with people’s organisations and NGO networks. Normally the contribution of ISI will be sharing our expertise in training with the outreach partners. Over the last seven years we have evolved the methodology, strategy and dynamics of outreach programmes so that today we have developed a system by which we are able to be in contact with major people’s organisations in major regions of all the four southern states of Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Mr. Chand Peer is the Coordinator of Karnataka Outreach, Mr. C. S. Saravanan of Tamil Nadu, Mr. John Ruskin of Andhra Pradesh and mr. Santhosh Abraham of Kerala Outreach. Out of 84 training programmes this year 54 are conducted in the outreaches. From last year onwards outreach units have started to take up small research studies along with the training programmes. Kerala and Karnataka have taken up such research studies and are working on them. Outreach programmes thus not only strengthen people’s organisations and movements and thus empower the marginalised, but also has given a field-based and people-based dimension of the Institute which was also a charism of ISI from its inception. |
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| Open Programmes |
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