“We are in the buisness of freedom” - utbildning och empowerment i Kolkata

Abstract

With this ethnographic study we have sought to depict and analyze how Sari Bari works with education and skill training in order to help women out of prostitution in the Red Light Districts of Kolkata. We want to raise awareness and gain greater understanding of how to empower and educate people with difficult backgrounds by what we learnt from Sari Bari. The aim of this ethnographic study is to analyze how the women and the leadership within the organization perceive and talk about the education, which Sari Bari provides and whether it has empowered them or impacted their lives in any way. To achieve this aim we volunteered at Sari Bari for three weeks, where we did observations with addition of interviews, both formal and informal. Our observations and the women’s articulations about education will be presented and analyzed by applying ethnography as a method and underlying theory. By analyzing observations and articulations done during our time at Sari Bari we want to contribute to a greater understanding and raise awareness of how important education is in order to gain empowerment.

During our time at Sari Bari we have primarily focused on two questions:

- In what way does the leadership and the women speak of the education offered through Sari Bari, in relation to Freire’s ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’ and empowerment?

- What opportunities and difficulties are articulated about the organisations education, and how are these difficulties dealt with?