'Youth Fellowship programme', 'Mythologies of Mumbai' and 'Exploring Social & Physical Determinants of Urban Health' are current projects run by PUKAR.
The Youth Fellowship programme, PUKAR's flagship project, is supported by Sir Ratan Tata Trust. This well known project is based upon the concept of democratizing research and using it as a tool for alternative pedagogy, advocacy, intervention and transformation where research itself becomes a point of action with documentation becoming a moment of transformation of action.
The essential conceptualization of the design involves that one group of ten or twelve youth, led by a mentor or a senior fellow would, with help of simultaneous, rigorous training, conduct research over a period of one year, in their own locality or in their own community on a subject of their own choice, which is anchored in their living experience. Here the youth while conducting the research, is simultaneously a knowledge producer and a learner.
This process oriented social science research process has created a large cadre of 'Barefoot Researchers' who are exploring the wave of urbanization. With the tools to understand how to shape a research idea, these young Mumbai citizens go out into the world with the capacity for gathering evidence and using that evidence to make arguments about their future and become problem solvers for the future of their city.Over five years, more than eighteen hundred Mumbai youth have graduated through the Youth Fellowship programme. To gain more knowledge and information abut this programme or to apply for youth fellowship you can log onto their website www.pukar.org.in & www.pukaryouthfellowship.org.in.
