A mega event was held in Mohanpur Panchayat, Mograhat Block I, West Bengal, on December 13 to mobilise Change Makers. Existing Change Makers shared their stories with those who participated in the event and many stepped forward to become Change Makers.

Nishta, a campaign ally that works in South 24 Parganas, in Barisipur district, has mobilised 9000 Change Makers. It has been an ally of the campaign since 2006. In 2009 it has forged relationships with panchayati members, educational institutes, school teachers, head masters,and several members of the 60 villages in its project area.

For the state of West Bengal as a whole, state level meetings and workshops have been held from December 2008 to February 2009. They were marked by seminars, speeches, rallies, cultural programmes, discussions, workshops, and a host of activities. A large number of SHG members attended as these meetings were spearheaded by SHGs. Many Change Makers shared their stories in these forums and learned from each others experiences.

Thoughtshop Foundation (TF) is a social communications organisation, providing technical support to grassroots organizations on communication strategies, tools and training on a wide range of social and health issues. TF has been working with Oxfam on ways of raising issues related to gender understanding to the community through a series of partnerships since 2003. In 2006 Thoughtshop Foundation joined the campaign as an alliance partner and has been implementing programmes to create youth changemakers in West Bengal.

In Phase 1, TF strategy was aimed at reaching out to a cross section of young people. TF has partnered with youth groups in the South Zone of West Bengal: Kolkata, 24 Parganas North, 24 Parganas South,Hooghly and Howrah. Young people from both rural, urban and slum based groups were reached through youth networks.

In Phase 2, TF has used the following strategy to help consolidate the work initiated by phase 1 of the campaign: strengthening understanding of Old Change Makers, encouraging key old Change Makers to create a community of active Change Makers, motivating Change Maker teams to reach out (individually and in groups) through a range of small scale (no cost/ low cost) events and creating public visibility through street plays.

A series of intensive workshops with key old Change Makers from schools, colleges and community based youth groups were held to motivate, refresh and deepen understanding as well as explore different ways of reaching out, that is, activities that constitute an event. Gender understanding for old Change Makers was deepened through workshops, reflective activities and gender research projects.

Old and key change Makers were encouraged to form groups of approx. 8-10 members. Key change Makers began by strengthening the understanding of this peer group by holding intensive sessions with this group and clarifying their doubts.

Change Makers worked individually and in teams using campaign materials to create new Change Makers. Change Maker teams who had worked with small groups in their communities were encouraged to reach out to their community using street theatre.