Overview

Akshara Centre is a Mumbai based, non-profit organisation which believes in changing society by empowering women and girls. Over the past 2 decades, we have engaged with economic and social empowerment with underprivileged young women. 5000 young women have been able to access educational scholarships and employment along with interactive and intense life skills and legal rights information. Social empowerment is complemented with economic empowerment so young women can break out of the cycle of poverty. We also work with young underprivileged men in low resource colleges to support this empowerment by being Gender Champions. 25,000 youth have been trained and carry out campaigns and safety audits for the prevention of sexual harassment which reach large numbers of local people. Besides ground level community based work, Akshara takes empowerment to the level of the neighbourhood and the city. We have done extensive work to make Mumbai gender inclusive and safe for women. In collaboration with the police, we helped in setting up the emergency helpline 103 for women, children and the elderly for the prevention of violence. To make commuting free of sexual harassment, we tied up with the bus and train authorities, to train conductors and railway protection force and women squads. We teamed with the Municipal Corporation to establish a Gender Resource Centre. Our latest intervention is in the Mumbai Development Plan 2014-34 to include reservation for various amenities through a chapter on Gender and in setting up an Advisory Committee. We are Mumbai based with national and international networks. Akshara has been on the Civil Society Advisory Group of UN Women since 2013 and is an active organizer for World Social Forum and One Billion Rising campaigns.