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Resource Centre for Women and Girls

VACHA is a women's group that was formed in 19g7as a women's library, together with a cultural centrethat created and collected oral and visual resourcesfor use by literacy-deprived women. It alsoorganizes gender training for groups like collegeyouth, teachers and social activists. Theorganization is Mumbai based and its outreach

programmes are mainly in Maharashtra andGujarat. It is part of a network of autonomouswomen's groups in India. It was registered as atrust in 1990.

From 1995 Vacha has focused on issues ofadolescent girls who live in bastis/ poorneigbourhoods that are referred to as slums byauthorities. Girls here suffer gender biases that arecompounded by poverty, caste and ethnicity andalso by linguistic or religious minority status. Vachaworks with them for their empowerment through itsdevelopment activities, research, documentation,networking, campaigns and advocacy.Through its programmes, Vacha aims to enhanceself-esteem and self-expressions of girls andwomen and visibalise their issues. It providestraining for girls to become better equipped forlearning and for accessing opportunities for growthand development. This includes health educationand elements of pre-vocational training in itsprogrammes. In recent years Vacha has startedincluding male youth in some of its projects, as theirgender sensitization and participation can beimportant in resolving problems that girls face athome and in community.VACHA is a term in the feminine gender in severalIndian languages. It means speech, verbalex p ressi o n o r a rti cu I a ti o n.

Girls Centres aYouth Spaces

Youth centres of Vacha are located in several bastis'and schools. They are accessed by girls and boys insecond decade of life. Some are exclusively for girls.The young participants come for curricular inputsand other activities before or after their schoolshifts and on week ends, The focus is on training inleadership and youth participation in civic life.Lessons in English and computer skills areorganised for them as a working knowledge of bothis essential for upward mobility. Music, yoga,photography, art and theatre sessions areintegrated in the programmes. A multilinguallibrary provides for vocabulary development andaccess to general knowledge. A mobile collection ofbooks and other resources for children and youthare taken to community centres regularly.

Vacha organises health and educational funfairsfor girls and for mixed groups of girls and boys inbastis, municipal schools and at other sites. Theorganisation has produced resources such as healthdiaries, children's rights handbooks, posters andcharts, puzzles, games as well as an album of songsof girlhood and other training materials for use intraining programmes.

These centres have covered several hundreds ofyoung people directly through its work incommunities and in neighbourhood schools andseveral thousands through outreach programmes.

Each centre publishes their newsletters twice a yearand organizes public events. Vacha's ongoingprogrammes in schools and bastis include Bolekishori - 'Girls Speak Out' where girls receivetraining in communication skills and voice theirconcerns and perceptions of their life at home andoutside. In some of the bastis slightly older andautonomous youth groups have emerged fromVacha's activities. The leadership and selfempowerment programmes for youth are designedto help young people acquire life skills necessaryfor articulating their needs, understanding role anduse of various institutions and facilities, and forcreating an awareness of issues like child rights,gender bias, and communal harmony and forpreparing them for new socio-economic realities of2 1" centu ry,

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Library andCultural Centre

Access to information is important to anystruggle, movement or developmentprogramme. Although the women's movementgave rise to the concept of a women's Iibrary inthe eighties/ none actually existed till Vachaestablished one in 1987. Originally housed in thehome of a member, the library is now located inits Santacruz project centre, It has nearly fivethousand books on and by women and for youth.Major areas include Literature, Society, History,Women's liberation, Psychology, Media,Development issues, Sexuality, Health, Religion,Education, and Violence against Women. Thereare also research reports, magazines, journalsand other documents, The library also has booksin Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati. Students, socialactivists, home makers, research scholars,media practitioners and others access it.

The cultural centre evolved along with the libraryto overcome the limitations faced by literacy-deprived women. Most writing on women's

issues is still in English and therefore accessibleto very few, Vacha collects, creates, translatesand disseminates cultural resources such assongs, skits, audio and video cassettes and CDson topics concernlng women's rights, women'shistories, environment and peace and girls'issues, It screens films of interest to women andyouth and organizes interactions betweenreaders and writers. Vacha has produced fouralbums of songs on gender issues and twodocumentaries on women freedom fighters aspart of a project to take women's history back towomen.

The library conducts study circles, filmscreenings and interfaces with women writers.Library regulars have interacted with visitingwriters like Alison Lurie, Ashwini Dhongde,Barbara Ehrenreich, Dhiruben Patel, GloriaSteinem, Jameela Nishat, Mahasweta Devi,Mamata Sagar, Nabonita Deb Sen, Urmila pawarand others.

Research and Training

Members ofVacha have engaged in research anddocumentation on women's and on girls' issuesindependently and as part of the group. Theyalso work to increase visibility of women inhistory, and to highlight the status andcontribution of marginalized sections of womenand girls. Research areas include Women in theIndian Nationalist movement, Sidi women in theGir forest in Gujarat, Bene Israel women ofMaharashtra, traditional games of Maharashtrianwomen, Women and Ageing and Gender issuesin education.

Today the focus is more on adolescent girls, theirhealth and education status and on their selfexpressions and their voices, Vacha hasproduced three volumes on this subject that has,as yet, rarely been covered by researchers andwriters. One major area of Vacha's training isworkshops for youth on gender, communalharmony and democracy. Vacha's trainingmaterials have been used by UNICEF, the stateeducation departments and by many NGOs.

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Resource ProductionExperiencing girlhood - Stories from bastis inMumbai (English)

Bole kishori (Girls Speak Out)- Self Expressions ofadolescent girls living in the poor neighborhoods inMumbai (Hindi)

Maidan khula ab der kis baat ki - booklet of inspiringstories of sports women (Hindi/Marathi)

Munnmit - a health handbook for girls with rightsapproach (Hindi & Marathi)

Masti ki pathshala - a puzzle booklet on health forchildren (Hindi/Marathi)

Aple Khel Arogyashi Mel - documentation oftraditional games of women in Maharashtra andtheir implications for health (Marathi)

Bal-Kishori : the preadolescent girl - a researchreport (English)

Gender bias in education of girls from povertyaffected families - a research report

Geet Vacha - a book of songs on women's issues(multilingual)

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Bheetar Bahe Mukti Dhara (The Stream Within) -video documentary on women from the Indianfreedom movement (Hindi/ Gujarati/ Marathi withEnglish sub-titles)

Safia Khan ki Talash mein (In Search of SafiaKhan) - On a forgotten woman leader - videodocumentary in Hindi with English sub-tiUes

Rebecca Reuben - Scholar, Teacher and CommunityLeader [1889-1957] (English)

Jewish Indian and Women - Compilation of storiesof Bene Israeli women in India (English)

Kishori Geef - audio cassette/CD (Hindi) - songs ongirlhood

o Sakhiyon ke Sang - audio cassette/CD (Hindi) -songs for women

o Sarkhi Saheli - audio cassette/CD (Gujarati) folkbased garba songs on women's issues

. Apni Baheno ke Saath - audio cassette (Hindi) -songs from the women's movement

o Vardhana - Women and Ageing in India , Report of anational colloquium, (English)

o Women's Question - a Quiz book with 333 womenrelated questions

o Aaj Zameen Kal Asmaan (Today the. Earth,Tomorrow the Sky) A poster on developmentalsupport to girls in early adolescence

Forthcoming:

o A collection of articles on women's issues (Gujarati)

. Forgotten Founding Mothers * Women from theIndian Freedom Movement - an anthology (Englishand Hindi)

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we, at Vacha, are a group of women with backgrounds in social activism,community work, media, research, writing, teaching and homemaking.Vacha is supported by grants and donations. It also derives support and

strength from the contributions of individual women and men in form of time,energy/ expertise, and gifts of books, furniture and equipment.

Core group:Dir"l*shy*eri Thonse

Kun:r-ld Shanbagfil!na t{a*e*rsi\ischint l-"1*rn

Pradnya SalvarEeonkerSeeta SetalvadSonai SlruklaVibhuti Fatei

Trustees:Din*shwari Thonse, Meenel Pat*|, S*nnl Shukla, Vibhuti pat*l

Visitors are welcome to the project office at:Project Vacha

Municipal School building, Tank Lane,Off S.V. Road, Santacruz (west), Mumbai 400 054.

P hone: 022 26055523 Ema i I vachamail@gmail.comwww.vacha.org.in

Vacha ix reg!xt*red *s cr ti-r.,st and d*nations t* it are exempturid*r s*cti*r"l **G *f th* Incnrne T*x Aet, Vmchm s*ek$

eontribntisn$ *$ €}r;lntsr ei*n*ti*ars, rei*vnnt b**ksu eassettes,and *ther rn*l*riel$ *mcj indivi*ucl h*ip in tirc f*nm *f tinne

*n* *n*rclV for its nctivities"

Donations/correspondence to vacha may be addressed to the registered office:Vacha Charitable Trust, 5, Bhavna Apartments,S. V. Road, VileParle (West), Mumbai - 400 056.

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