The Ahimsa Initiative

Mission

• To support organizations in India that work on the cause of violence against women and girls • To approach the issue of violence prevention through the multiple lenses of education, health, economic empowerment, and social reform • To raise awareness and conversation around the crisis of violence against women and girls in India.


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Barakat envisions an India where girls and women are safe in public and private spaces. An India where all genders are brought up with equal opportunities and treated with respect.

What kind of projects does The Ahimsa Pilot Initiative support?

  • Projects that work to bring about systemic change in the existing response towards violence against women and girls.

  • Projects that focus attention on the problem by bringing it into the public eye, through visual mediums (like theatre, dance, photography etc.) or through the written word (in publications or online).

  • Projects that provide direct relief to victims of violence through support services.

Photo credit: SNEHA Mumbai

  • Projects that seek to educate the general public, including children and young adults, about the existing crisis of violence against women and girls in India.

Photo Credit: Guria

Current Partner: Guria, Benaras, Uttar Pradesh

Current Project: Non-Formal Education Center for Children of Professional Sex-Workers

Project Duration: Ongoing

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Photo Credit: SNEHA Mumbai

Current Project: Strengthening community stewardship and management, building sustainability, and deepening interventions on primary and secondary prevention of gender-based violence in urban settlements of Mumbai: Communities respond and learn not to tolerate gender-based violence

Project Duration: 2022 - 25

Past Partner: SNEHA (Society for Nutrition, Education & Health Action), Mumbai, Maharashtra

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“There is really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced or the preferably unheard.”

— Arundhati Roy