Life skills training of 300 girls in Mumbai slums

The following is a postcard from Neeharika Tummala, GlobalGiving's In-the-Field Representative in India and Bangladesh, about her recent visit to Vacha Charitable Trust.

Although I could not go to the field, I had a fantastic opportunity to meet with the founder and the executive team, but also the four of the young bloods of Vacha who run with implementing several of these programs in their respective geographic blocs.

All of these ladies are from the communities themselves and have gone through the Vacha programs in some way or the other. Even though they couldn’t speak in English, it was remarkable as to how confident, insightful, organized and bold these ladies were. Our group conversation flowed from topic to topic as we talked about various campaigns that they have organized, the response from members in the communities, what they do in the face of pushback, what their vision for the future is and what their views on the effectiveness of Vacha is.

I got to hear stories of the campaigns that they have organized such as inspiring kids to make a film in their community around Garbage and the beach, or organizing a signature based campaign to raise awareness around issues and to fight for change in their community. Another example was raising awareness on the Right to Information Act and how community members can access information, understand their rights and complain to the right channels if they face corruption in things like access to ration of food. When asked as to if they ever face pushback in the community or if they ever get scared, they talked about several instances where sometimes it is tough and they do get pushback, but that they also work extensively with the entire community and they do manage to get that support at the end.

What impressed me is their ability to execute Vacha campaigns with the confidence and skill that any urban MBA graduate would have. The ladies grapple with training kids, raising awareness, outreach, running various campaigns and they seem to do it so effortlessly whereas even running one campaign is a large undertaking for many others. These ladies are also success stories of Vacha and proof that it works! Power on Ladies!