My Choices Foundation, through project Operation PeaceMaker has devised multiple intervention and prevention strategies to ender gender-based violence in Indian communities by empowering local women called "PeaceMakers". They are paralegal workers who educate women and children on their rights and prevent abuse by running awareness workshops. We have 5 counselling centres in Telangana which provide free support to victims of domestic violence through qualified counsellors and lawyers.
There is widespread domestic violence within varied people-groups in India. Women and girls in both urban and rural India suffer violence in the form of verbal, physical, sexual, financial and emotional abuse by men who are their spouses or biological relatives. The hesitation to come forward with complaints of violence and abuse stems from the common view that domestic violence is an accepted form of behaviour in the patriarchal home, and this makes women in our country more vulnerable.
We devised multiple intervention and prevention strategies to address gender-based violence. The core of Operation PeaceMaker are the "PeaceMakers", local women trained by us to be paralegal workers who educate women and children on their rights and prevent abuse by running variety of short term and long term awareness workshops in schools, colleges, communities and offices. We have 5 counselling centres in Telangana, India which provide free support to victims of domestic violence.
Each PeaceMaker provides services to around 50 families each year. That's 50 women living free from abuse and violence, 50 perpetrators who have re-learned what it means to be a man, 50 families who have discovered the peace that homes deserve. Crucially, it also means 50 homes in which children are growing up learning that violence is never acceptable. We have trained over 232 PeaceMakers and operate 5 counselling centres which have resolved over 8,000 cases of domestic violence and abuse.
