By Sonal Shukla | Director
Hello friends,
We want to share some happy news. Vacha Trust completes 25 years of its formal existence as a charity on March 19th. It has been a fulfilling journey of working on issues of women and girls. We had actually started working from 1987 but had not registered as a trust until 1990. We had some stressed periods due to shortage of resources but, with good will of supporters like you and others, we survived and flourished. We wish you could all be with us to celebrate this mile stone. Encouraged by it we now rededicate ourselves to conducting programs in life skills for girls and train hundreds of girls a year. We are approaching many agencies and individuals for support. We hope you will also visit the project no. 16755 at https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/life-skills-training-annually-for-poor-girls-in-mumai/ and continue to support our project of life skills training for girls from impoverished families living in slums. We sincerely hope you will also visit our website from time to time.
The last quarter in the project had two major events. One was the release of newsletters in all the 17 poor neighbourhoods, where Vacha is active, on the Indian Republic Day. In six communities it was their 12th newsletter. In a new community, girls start with making posters and leaflets and then gradually acquire skills and confidence to create own newsletters. The other event was celebration of Women’s Day in the same areas where the girls chose to treat it like Mothers’ Day and bonded with mothers to discuss new social realities that they all live in and their impact on girls’ lives. The topics vary such as girls’ aspirations for further education, for fashion and dress code, mothers’ situation about domestic chores and so on.
Vacha’s active participation in the core group of NGOs working on Right To Pee, a campaign for safe a clean public toilets for women continues. On Women’s Day the govt. awarded it for being a strong women led citizens’ campaign. To the campaigns demand for toilets for women in public spaces, Vacha has added a demand for repairs and maintenance of toilets in slum areas, where people do not have the facility at home and the state of public toilets are dirty and very inconvenient for women and girls.
Currently we have only planned a get together of Vacha team and volunteers on March 19 when we actually complete 25 years but hope to have more events through the year if resources permit. We reaffirm our appreciation of your support and good will and welcome your good wishes for the occasion.
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