Quest toward gender equality through equity

Quest toward gender equality through equity

Vacha emerged as a women’s group during the 1980s. Initiated by women active in the women’s rights movement, it started as a resource centre to address the need for space for discourse, resources and collective action. It was established and registered as a Trust in 1990.

Since 1995, Vacha has focused on working with adolescent girls and boys with a special focus on girls. Vacha looks at its work with adolescents as a preventive measure against the creation of vulnerabilities in women due to lack of education, exposure and opportunities. Vacha believes that empowered girls and sensitised boys have a better chance of developing into adults who value equality and become productive citizens.

Our Work

Vacha means expression and articulation. Vacha thrives to address the unique challenges faced by adolescents and youth with multiple vulnerabilities through tailormade educational programmes, resource creation, research, training, campaigns, and collaborative networking.

Girls’ Resource Centre
Girls’ Resource Centre

Imparting knowledge and training in 21st-century life skills such as conversational English, Computers, Photography and Communication through sessions, workshops, visits and events in the centre and the community.
Youth Empowerment
Youth Empowerment

Capacity building and increasing social capital for youth and actively engaging them in civic issues such as safety, sanitation and access to resources.
Research & Training
Research & Training

Gender trainings and workshops conducted to combat gender inequalities. Engaging youth in research and documentation.
Awareness Building & Networking
Awareness Building & Networking

Initiatives entirely led by programmeme participants and mentors where they target problems affecting them in their communities and implement interventions to address them.
Mobile Library & Resource Creation
Mobile Library & Resource Creation

Creation of content and inculcating reading habits among adolescent girls and boys. Over 3380 children’s books in seven different languages are made available to those who enroll themselves.
Check out our programmes

Creating opportunities to foster youth leadership in diverse groups

Alignment of our programmes to SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 5 (Gender Equality) and SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities).

Established Gender-Friendly Training Centres for adolescents in 25 communities and 2 Slum Rehabilitation Authority/Rehabilitation and Resettlement (RR) sites across urban and peri- urban areas in Mumbai, Thane (Maharashtra), and Valsad (South Gujarat).

Formed 10 community-based feminist youth groups, ensuring equal or maximum participation of girls, who are actively addressing key issues such as safety, sanitation, and education.

Directly impacted over 97,000 individuals through focused outreach and extended our reach to 430,000+ people via community programmes in schools, colleges, and beyond, all in the last 10 years.

Equipped around 10,000 girls and boys in 21st century life skills critical for their educational achievement, self-development and community actions in the last 10 years.

Community youth groups have been consistently publishing their Bi-annual Community Newsletter – Hamari Baatein, since 2009, to spotlight important issues affecting their communities.

Hosted One-of-a-Kind National Girlhood Symposium in 2008, blending girls’ creative expressions with academic presentations to promote dialogue and raise awareness on girlhood issues.

Have been coordinating the Learning community Network of Adolescent Girls in Mumbai since 2012.

In 2023-24, we worked with 19,184 adolescents in their second decade of life through our Empowerment and Community Leadership Programmes, fostering growth and leadership skills

Vacha has been actively working towards empowerment of intersectionally deprived girls through empowerment through diverse interventions for the past 31 years. We create safe spaces in bastis (commonly referred to as slums) by hiring or sharing community spaces such as Aanganwadis, Community Halls etc. thereby fostering community partnerships and support.

The houses in these bastis, are small and occupy around 5 to 7 family members in a space of less than 100 sq. ft. In these bastis, most families are Scheduled Castes (formerly considered untouchable) or are OBC (belonging to other backs ward castes) coming from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and rural Maharashtra. Girls in these communities are enrolled in poorly run state-supported schools or in low-paid private schools and educating or equipping them for life is not a priority with the residents in this community. Hence, Vacha began its work in these communities to equip girls with soft and hard skills to train them in taking up leadership roles in community work.

We are currently engaged in 15 Bastis across Mumbai and Thane districts.