Hi there

Thank you for visiting, this is Purna.

Welcome to my musings, to notes on what I’m up to, commentary on things happening in the world and suggestions on how to make improvements.

I join hands with those searching to make our world much better.  I have sought to do so through teaching – by building skills, knowledge and critical engagement – or through human rights advocacy and organising, through input to politicians and governance systems or support to organisations to bring justice into their internal world while they also seek to pursue it beyond. I’ll be critical, I’ll find shortcomings and I’ll be looking for reasons to be cheerful.

It is really important to me that people have chances to build lives of dignity and joy for themselves and their families, that they know and enjoy their rights and have reasons to smile. I am especially vexed by violence, especially but not only against women (VAW) and children and have worked on VAW for decades.

In organisations doing rights, justice or related work, many people believe that the colleagues with whom they work (whether junior or leadership) will uphold principles and ideals of justice in their everyday working environment. Sadly though, some who promote justice, equality and speaking truth-to-power can behave in ways which are at odds with the quest for justice, equality and the speaking of truth to power.

After decades of work in or with domestic and international organisations focused on the promotion of democracy, development and rights, I suffer no illusions of heroism inside the organisational homes of those seeking justice and I am opposed to opaqueness or efforts to deflect examination and accountability.

Doing ‘good work’ does not in itself make anyone a ‘good person’ nor can it be wielded as a shield against scrutiny.

Without understanding how power works in these organisations we cannot even start to dismantle and reshape the contexts which support and enable its abuse. This subject will be a theme on this site.

This website is a work in progress – as publications, events, musings happen or get uploaded. But I’m no IT expert so sometimes there may be glitches or delays in getting things on here…I’ll be on it at some point. Though sometimes what I post about may be technical my aim is to write in plain English. I will seek to improve accessibility,I know this site needs to do better on that front.

You can find me on BlueSky at PurnaSen.bsky.social

All the pictures used and words written on this site are those of Purna Sen unless otherwise stated. Please don’t reproduce without credit. I assert my copyright across this site.