5 NGOs That Have Changed The Face Of Women’s Livelihood In 2022

Year End 2022: Women intrinsically play a key role in nurturing and building blocks for living. Every country can progress 3-4 times its performance if women can be converted into women workforce. In India, women play a significant role in transforming culture, economy, society, and environment and they are instrumental in our country’s growth. While the top-tier cities have been focusing on women’s education and development and making them an active part of the country’s economy; the situation in Tier 3/4 cities and rural India has still not progressed much.

Women in the smaller cities and towns are still looked upon as family creators and caregivers and they are being pushed into early marriage, followed by motherhood. There are multiple civil society organizations working relentlessly towards the development of women’s workforce in the country, but few have made an immense breakthrough in the last few years.

5 NGOs That Have Changed The Face Of Women’s Livelihood In 2022

1. PRADAN: It is a 38-year-old organization, which has been working extensively towards reaching out to the poorest communities, building human capabilities, and building women’s self-reliant collectives as change agents. It has been working extensively for the rural populace in the seven states of Central and Eastern India. PRADAN recruits and trains young professionals from across the country to engage with poor communities at the grass-root level. Over the years, Pradan has partnered with many State Governments and Departments to design and implement initiatives that impact and transform the lives of the rural poor. PRADAN is also the NSO (DDAY-NRLM Support Organization) for the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, which provides a piece of knowledge and capacity-building role in these critical ministries. PRADAN conducts several programs for rural women with an opportunity to explore and learn skills as per one’s own interests and the prevalent demand in the market and make informed career choices.
2. Swayam Shikshan Prayog: The organization empowers grassroots women’s collectives to move from “Margin to Mainstream”. Since 1998, the organization has built a robust partner ecosystem that enables women’s entrepreneurship and leadership in sustainable development. Currently, over 2500 village-level women social entrepreneurs have been launched and organized in peer training and networks. SSP’s eco-system of social enterprises kicks in to act as aggregators and intermediaries by improving access to women’s networks, finance, skills and technology, and markets. The combined mobilization of resources by social enterprises alone is 65 crores, through micro-finance (SSK), skills and entrepreneurship training (SSEN), and marketing and distribution (SURE). They follow a shared mission and interdependent strategy and function, as independent legal entities. SSP and its social enterprises forge partnerships with the Government and private sector to scale up the hybrid model, benefiting women and over one million people at the grassroots.
3. Centre for catalyzing change: Centre for Catalyzing Change (C3), started working in India in 1987. In the last 30 years, C3 has emerged as a key change-making organization focused on improving the condition of girls and women in the country. They design solutions that mobilize, equip, educate and empower girls and women to meet their full potential. They strive to create an ecosystem where all girls and women can demand and get their due entitlements. Their work addresses the challenges that they face in our country at various stages in their lives. Their programs are aimed at equipping girls and women with practical life skills, improved confidence in personal decision-making, and increased self-esteem. Their work ensures that girls and women have access to quality reproductive and maternal health care.
4. Centre for social research: It was founded by a group of social scientists from JNU, CSR was established in 1983 in New Delhi. They are dedicated to creating a violence-free, gender-just society through social research, capacity building, and advocacy. A renowned social activist and a prolific academician, Dr. Ranjana Kumari is the Director of the Centre for Social Research as well as Chairperson of Women Power Connect. The organization operates on all three levels — local, regional and national, helping to create better systems for gender equality. Dr. Ranjana Kumari combines the roles of a women activist and scholar with great felicity and panache. Having dedicated her life to significant social causes, Dr. Ranjana Kumari continues to impact the lives of many with her dedication and zeal.
5. Breakthrough: Breakthrough is a human rights organization, seeking to make violence and discrimination against women and girls unacceptable. For this, they use the power of arts, media, pop culture, and community mobilization to inspire people to take bold action and build a world in which all people live with dignity, equality, and justice. They inspire people to fight for the rights of women and girls by catalyzing leadership in communities and building a larger movement to change deep-rooted cultural norms that perpetuate gender-based discrimination and violence. While there is multiple organization working towards the development of ‘Nari Shakti’ in the country, the work done by these four organizations is commendable. Women in India still need empowerment and growth opportunities to showcase their true power and equally contribute to the GDP of the country.