Zindagi Fellowship Orientation

Report

Introduction
On 19-20th April, 2026, Project Mukti successfully conducted the Orientation of its fifth Zindagi Fellowship cohort at USO, New Delhi. Zindagi Fellowship is a six-month online incubation program for Dalit, Bahujan, Adivasi women, non-binary and transgender youth to take the lead in their economic empowerment. Through this flagship program, we aim to build a network of the emerging generation of Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi (DBA) women, non-binary and transgender youth who are entrepreneurs, working professionals and change makers. 

The call for applications started in  January and we received over a hundred applications. After a long and mindful selection process that spanned over two months, we finalized our 15 Zindagi Fellows. The orientation programme was planned to welcome all of them to the fellowship, and bring them all together with the ZF and Project Mukti team in a celebration of our identity, community, entrepreneurship, and resilience.

Welcoming fellows in the session

Day 1 of the fellowship was held on 19th April 2026. Most fellows had arrived in Delhi the night before, while some reached early that morning. During breakfast, the team had informal conversations with the fellows to understand the overall energy of the cohort. There was both excitement and nervousness in the room, as this was the first time everyone was meeting in person after only interacting online. Many were curious and unsure about what these two days and the space would feel like for them.

We started the first session exactly on time, as all the fellows were very committed and serious about the fellowship. To create a safe and comfortable space, we began with a fun physical activity where everyone introduced themselves with a movement, and the group repeated both the name and movement together.To make the fellows feel less overwhelmed, the team members started the activity first. This helped set the tone that everyone in the room was equal and that creating a safe space was a shared responsibility.

About Zindagi Fellowship

After the activity, we introduced the fellows to the basic idea of Zindagi Fellowship and Project Mukti’s mission and vision, explaining what this room stands for and how we can participate in the session while maintaining a safe space. We talked about how this fellowship is not only about learning skills for a job or business but also about finding a community and a sense of belonging.

Contracts Forms and Welcome Kit

We then moved on to important forms and agreements that the fellows needed to understand and sign, including the Per Diem Form, Media Consent Form, and Laptop Contract. Along with this, we distributed a welcome kit containing a DHM poster, a dupatta from a past cohort fellow, a Project Mukti diary, and a pen.

The Media Consent Form gave fellows the choice to decide whether they were comfortable having their photos shared on social media, ensuring their safety and consent were respected. The Laptop Contract explained how the laptops, provided for official purposes, should be used and taken care of responsibly.

Project Mukti Team and Organisation Introduction

This was followed by a session on Faculty Introduction, where each ZF team and Project Mukti team member introduced themselves, telling the fellows about their journeys, how they came to Project Mukti, and what motivates them to work here. Through these stories, we tried to give the fellows an idea about caste and gender, as each of our journeys is affected by these factors in ways we sometimes understand and sometimes do not. After that, our Director, Sanghapali, shared the journey of Project Mukti through a PPT, explaining how the organization came into existence and how, throughout the years, Project Mukti has worked on different social issues related to caste and patriarchy.

T-shirt Printing Session

Then, after lunch, we had a T-shirt Printing Session. Earlier, we used to give Project Mukti T-shirts to fellows in the welcome kit, but this year we thought, why not create our own T-shirts? This gives fellows the chance to say, "This is something I created in the session" something to take with them and show to their family or friends. Even though other parts of the orientation involve theory and practice, taking something physical that you created gives you a sense of ownership over yourself and the fellowship you will be part of for the next six months.

Even though we planned the T-shirt printing to be a 90-minute activity, it took more time than expected as the Cricut machine was new for the fellows and required careful work. Throughout the activity, Sanghapali guided the fellows on how to run the machine and shared a business idea: that they could also start a T-shirt printing business if they learned how to work the machine. Throughout the session, the fellows were highly engaged; they looked for designs they wanted on the internet and shared them with Sanghapali, who edited them according to the size and capabilities of the machine. The end results were amazing.

During the T-shirt printing, there was a period where fellows had picked their designs but had to wait their turn since we only had one machine. Seeing that some were getting restless and tired, we planned a karaoke session. A karaoke track was played on the screen, and fellows could sing whatever they liked. This activity really made a difference; we could see the fellows becoming more comfortable with the faculty and each other, singing and laughing together, which made day two even more fun and amazing.

Welcoming and Reading of Poem

We started Day 2 with a reading of the poem “I Am Not Your Data” by Abhay Flavian Xaxa, a poem filled with resistance, anger, and the determination to build and protect our own culture. The poem speaks about resisting Brahmanical patriarchy, meritocracy, and the systems that try to define our worth without our consent.

We chose to begin the day with this poem because many of us, coming from our communities, have been made to believe that we are only “data” for a system that was never created by our choice. But through the Zindagi Fellowship, we are trying to challenge that very system simply by showing up, by choosing ourselves, and by building a community of entrepreneurs who are self-dependent and unapologetic about dreaming bigger. 

Computer Orientation Session by Subhankar

Then it was followed by the Computer Orientation session. The fellows followed the orientation and practiced basic computer tasks on their own. We covered the importance of digital literacy for both business and jobs in different corporate sectors. The practical part began with turning on their computers, connecting to the internet, and logging in with personal mail, and creating new Drive folders and files like Google Docs. The fellows learned to create new files, organize files and folders, and share access & set permissions. Alongside the practical session, we discussed online class etiquette and set rules for the classes in the upcoming six months. This included keeping their cameras on during classes, behaving properly, respecting each other’s opinions, and avoiding distractions and distracting others. A similar method was used to teach the fellows basic email etiquette. 

Critical Thinking Session by Nisha

Post the tea break, an interactive session on critical thinking was conducted which was interestingly planned around the social act of having tea. With a range of scenes from films like Ajeeb Dastaan, Paglait, Juice (short-film), and ad films by tea-manufacturing companies that had the common thread of offering and having tea, the session asks questions of caste, class, gender and religious discrimination. The fellows were first shown the advertisements and the film clips, and were encouraged to share what they saw in the clips. The facilitator asked pointed questions like what place, what social location, what emotion, what is present and what is missing. The answers of the fellows revealed exclusionary social practices.  Seemingly innocent act of offering tea and sitting together as we see in common tea advertisements were problematised to bring to the fore the hegemonic silences and absences by juxtaposing them against film scenes which portray offering tea in demarcated cups and their audio-visual framing. Then followed higher-order questions of why and how which took the discussion towards the need of critical thinking for social justice and ways to hone this skill. Associating critical thinking to the future classroom interactions in the coming months, fellows were also urged to keep the spirit of critical thinking alive throughout the Zindagi fellowship and afterwards.

Photoshoots and Video Testimonies

Post-lunch, we kept the whole second half of the day for the photoshoot session of the fellows, which included team photos, individual portraits, and video feedback from fellows about the session.

Testimonies from Fellows:

Zindagi Fellowship ka hissa banke bohot accha laga. Jab main sabse mili to pata chala ki kaafi unique mindset ke log hain yahan par. Humare facilitators mein influence without authority wali cheez maine yahan dekha. Aur aane wale 6 months ki journey ke liye bohot excited hun.

    -Mamta

Main pehle kuen ka mendhak tha, raat ko nikal nahi pata tha rukne ke liye. Main summer school jaata tha aur raat ko bhaag aata tha, ki ab mujhe ghar pe hi tikna hai. Magar yaha par workshop attend karne ke baad mera manobal badha ki, haan main bhi bahar reh sakta hun. Main bahar nikal aaya apne comfort zone se aur mere ghar wale bol rahe mujhe " haan tum jeet gaye." 

Abtak main samaanta ke bare mein likhta tha par iss workshop se maine seekha ki hume

equity ki bhi baat karni chahiye saath mein.

    -Imran

In these two days of workshop, I learned a lot about inclusivity. I felt that this is kind of a mini

inclusive space and we are ready to listen to each other, without any kind of pre-notions.

  -Ritika

During the photoshoot session, as fellows were going one by one for individual portraits and videos, we used the time to play a karaoke game in which whichever word comes on screen, fellows have to sing a song from that word and dumb charades in which all the fellows participated. We ended the day by taking a group picture with the fellows and the Project Mukti team, with the commitment to be fully present in the sessions, completing the full fellowship without missing the sessions, and meeting again during the graduation ceremony of the fellowship.