"My son used to kick me when he was in my womb. Why make an issue when he kicked me in my old age?" reasons a very forgiving Shakti Dasi. The widow travelled 2300 kms from Tripura to Vrindavan after her only son violently beat her with a burning plank of wood and broke her knee one evening. She had to leave behind the business she had built with her husband who had died a few years back. Shakti ended up on the streets of Brindavan begging for food and shelter. But when Winnie Singh of Maitri saw Shakti in a frail state in tattered clothes, she brought her to the shelter home where Shakti gets food, care and medicines. What more, with Maitri’s intervention, Shakti reconciled with her son - and daughter-in-law, and now travels home to Tripura twice a year to spend time with her grandchildren. But she is not leaving Maitri, as this has become her family.Not every elderly widow who comes to Vrindavan after being abandoned by her family gets as lucky as Shakti. Many of them often end up living a lonely life and begging to survive on the streets. Maitri aspires to take care of every widow in need of help.<img src="https://cfstatic.give.do/ce101369-528c-4d37-bc1d-1118b9925af3.jpg" />Maitri’s Project Jeevan to the rescueAbandoned, elderly widows are the amongst the most vulnerable in India. After being thrown out of their often abandoned by their own children and are forced to beg for food and shelter. “Through Project Jeevan, Maitri houses aging widow mothers in two ashrams in Vrindavan and Radhakund (Mathura), providing them with wellness and well-being. The programme also reaches out to widow mothers beyond the ashrams with fruit, milk and healthcare services,” explains Winnie Singh, co-founder and executive director, Maitri India.Save homeless elderly widows from begging on the streetsMost widows who make their way to Vrindavan are abandoned by their families, often after years of abuse. They come here hoping they will spend the rest of their days in prayer and devotion. But most live in impoverished conditions on the streets and in dingy rooms. Since poor living conditions often cause a wide range of health ailments, including respiratory infections and chronic conditions, Maitri comes to their rescue through its Project Jeevan.The project aims to:<ul><li>Provide meals leading to improved health and wellbeing</li><li>Make physical and mental health services accessible</li><li>Offer necessary quality aged care and assisted living support</li><li>Increase awareness on and engagement around the struggles of abandoned widow mothers</li></ul><img src="https://cfstatic.give.do/1abfb906-563b-4747-85b8-8af2071a2856.jpg" />Project Jeevan needs your support to help those in need of food, healthcare and well-being. Donate now.“Maitri urgently needs your support to provide food, clothing and healthcare to sustain these widow mothers who are prone to more illnesses as they age,” appeals Winnie.Maitri believes in a woman’s right to dignity in life and death, more so a mother. Our help will enable Maitri to save hundreds of abandoned widows from a life of begging, and restore the respect, dignity, and identity they deserve.

Save abandoned, elderly widow mothers of Vrindavan from begging on streets

“They insert a candle in the vagina, fingers are inserted (in the vagina) and tortured, and if children don’t relent even then, they put chilli powder so that children will say “yes” because of the burning of the skin… There are teeth marks on their bodies, and their vaginal parts are burnt. When children stay in these conditions, it is painful even to hear,” says Lalitha SA of Society for Participatory Integrated Development (SPID), in course of talking about many heart-rending stories of trafficked children in red-light areas.In over three decades, the SPID led by Lalitha, has saved over 3000 children from the red-light areas, many from clutches of sex trafficking.Sadly, many more children need to be rescued and in need of a loving home. But Lalitha needs our support to carry on the mission, to move out of her small facility so that she can rescue more children, house them in a permanent location and give them all the love they deserve. Your support can help her give these children the care and upbringing they need. Donate now.Donate easily through UPI, all debit/credit cards and net banking. Charitable donations to this fundraising campaign are tax exempted under 80G of the Income Tax Act (India).A movement to protect vulnerable childrenAs a social worker, Lalitha has worked for decades in GB Road, the red-light area of Delhi and helped many women escape the clutches of being forced into sex. But it was the exploitation of children, many of them hardly ten or twelve or even less. The SPID has focused on rescuing such children and giving them a new life.Lalitha plays a vital role in the survival and safety of vulnerable children in the red light areas. As SPID is almost entirely dependent on donations from the public, we can support and strengthen SPID’s mission to save children. Donate generously.Donation to SPID’s fundraiser on Give.do“I have limited funds and very limited space, and if I had the funds, I would be able to rescue many more children and provide them with more comfort. With folded hands, I plead with you that you help us with funds in large numbers and support us in providing us children with a decent life. Become a part of the mission,” pleads LalithaDonate to this fundraiser by Give, India’s largest and most trusted online donation platform, to help Lalitha give hundreds of children rescued from brothels a life away from violence and abuse.NGO's 80G number: AADAS3217RF20212NGO's 12A number: AADAS3217RE20214

This Navratri, help Lalitha give kids rescued from abuse in red-light areas a safe and loving home. Donate now.

“I used to be sexually abused repeatedly, and when I screamed in pain, they hit and threatened me with more violence,” says Priya (name changed), a rescued child sex worker. Priya was abducted by traffickers and sold into a red-light area house before she was rescued by Guria led by Manju. For over two decades, Manju has been rescuing young girls forced into prostitution across the country. She has been shaken to the core seeing some of the most horrifying crimes that young girls have to undergo. “You can’t imagine the state of girls forced into sex work. The girls are given electric shocks and burnt with cigarette butts just to get kicks out of it. And if they get pregnant, the "owners" kick them repeatedly in the womb so that the child inside dies…If you want to see hell, it is here on this planet where young girls are sexually abused,” says Manju.Manju needs your help to rescue more young girls from forced prostitution and reunite them with their families. Donate now.Guria’s work over the yearsBased out of Varanasi, inarguably the holiest place in India, Manju and her organisation Guria, fights the sexual exploitation of girls, especially minors, by taking on the traffickers head-on, and rescuing and rehabilitating them.Started in 1993, Guria has rescued over 5500 persons from slavery, sex trafficking, and child prostitution so far. It has also been instrumental in shutting down hundreds of places that housed trafficked girls and putting scores of traffickers out of business and in jail.For instance, in 2005, a Guria-led rescue operation in Varanasi's red-light area led to the freeing of 49 women and girls, including minors. Many of them were kept against their will. Some of the traffickers were also arrested and tried. Since then, Guria has rescued thousands of young girls.Manju and her husband, Ajeet Singh began rescuing girls from Varanasi’s red-light areas and then working to stop the sex-trafficking of young girls within Uttar Pradesh and outside. The organisation’s aim is to eliminate the sex trafficking of women, especially minor girls, end second-generation prostitution and child prostitution, and rehabilitate women and girls who are rescued from the trade. Manju has faced violent backlash from the traffickers and other vested interests, but it has not deterred her from carrying on rescuing young girls from trafficking. Rescue and rehabilitationBesides rescuing girls trafficked for sex, mostly from low-income families, from across the country, Guria fights on their behalf in courts and also provides education, food, vocational training, and other facilities until they are united with their families. But because of a lack of funds, Guria is finding it difficult to rescue more girls and also take care of them once they are away from the clutches of the traffickers. Take the case of Sameena (name changed), who was abducted from Uttar Pradesh all the way to Telangana. Guria took it upon itself to rescue the girl with the help of its own work and also the authorities. After months of rehabilitation, Sameena went back to her family and even completed her education. With your support, Manju can rescue many more young girls from trafficking and help them live the life of their dreams.

Help Manju rescue young sex trafficking victims. Donate now

This is a sample description for Women Empowerment. For the purpose of testing I will use the word Women EmpowermentWomen EmpowermentWomen Empowerment.

Women Empowerment

This is a sample description for Human Rights. For the purpose of testing I will use the word Human RightsHuman RightsHuman Rights.

Human Rights

Since 2008, Prajnya has worked to promote peace, justice and security in the broadest sense. We raise awareness about gender-based violence and its prevention. We document women's history and advocate for women's greater participation in public affairs. We have a peace education programme that works with schools, teachers and students and includes citizenship education initiatives. Our theory of change is that when we understand better and know more, our attitudes and practices, our sensitivity transforms the world to a more just and peaceful place.

Donations through Give Foundation, registered under section 80G of India's Income Tax Act, 1961 are tax-deductible.

Swarna Rajagopalan (Dr)

The Prajnya Trust

This nonprofit is registered as a charitable trust under section 12A of India's Income Tax Act, 1961.

This nonprofit is registered under section 80G of India's Income Tax Act, 1961. This means you can deduct 50% of the donation you made through your tax return.

Prajnya Trust

Prajnya turned 16 this September. We have come a very long way, in terms of work, from where we started in 2006-07. Our gender violence awareness work has grown considerably, becoming through campaigns, training programmes, research and policy interventions our most high-profile area of activity. Oral history and the visual archives have been the quiet heart of our work on women in public life. Our peace education work has persisted like water past resource challenges-, finding openings where it could–schools, youth centers, teacher training programmes and creative writing. We are grateful that we have built a large community around our work–in Chennai and online–and a reputation for doing that work with integrity and warmth. What remains unchanged, however, is our financial situation. We have been unable to build a team of salaried professionals at Prajnya and while it has not stopped the volunteers who make up our core from still doing whatever we can, this is no longer sustainable for us. Closure involves two processes–digital archiving of almost two decades of work and compliance work. We also have projects in the pipeline that will only end in 2024. We estimate it will take till the end of the 2024-25 financial year to truly wind up. We want 2024 to be our best, our most outgoing, our most creative year. We anticipate that our operational costs, including hiring a full-time Programme Officer, will be Rs.15 lakhs. We are hoping five of our friends will donate Rs. 3 lakhs each. We are hoping you will be one of them or will be our ambassador to reach one of them. What we would like first is a commitment. If we are able to raise the whole amount by December, we will let you know and you can transfer the money to Prajnya. You have supported us from the beginning. We hope you will support us now, at the end. The Prajnya TeamOctober 31, 2023

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One in every three women experiences abuse in her lifetime. Only one in four of them tells another person about this. Look around you. How much violence? How much silence? Violence is everywhere--in every space, public and private; in every community and class; at every life-stage. And so is impunity; few ever seem to be punished for sexual harassment.How do we change this reality? At Prajnya, we think the way to do this is to learn to recognise violence when it happens to us and around us. We believe that people need to speak about violence, aloud and to each other. Talking, sharing and learning about legal recourse, service providers and bystander intervention, and thinking critically about our attitudes and assumptions is the only way to end this epidemic that causes so much suffering every day. 
 Prajnya has worked since 2008 to create this awareness around the prevalence and forms of sexual and gender-based violence that people experience in the course of a lifetime: from sex-selective abortion to sexual harassment and rape to domestic violence and dowry death to elder abuse to cyber-space harassment to sexual violence in conflict.The Prajnya team reaches out year-round:<ul><li>to facilitate discussions among family and friends’ groups; clubs; residential societies and offices;</li><li>to conduct workshops for college students and other youth on gender sensitisation and violence;</li><li>to enable individuals to speak out and share through safe dialogue spaces and platforms for creative expression;</li><li>to sensitise service providers who might encounter violence survivors in the course of their work.</li><li>to support research on topics related to gender violence in India and make research and data accessible.</li></ul>Since 2008, in addition, we have organised eleven editions of the Prajnya 16 Days Campaign against Gender Violence between November 25 and December 10, both online and in-person, reaching out to new audiences to inform and engage with them, informally, formally, creatively about the issues--changing the world, one conversation at a time. You can be part of this movement by supporting our work. 
 At Prajnya, we believe that the individual is the basic unit of social change. When individuals engage, learn and share about issues, they move towards action--whether to help a neighbour, or to speak out about an issue, or to discuss with others, or in the way they vote. Our programmes reach out to individuals in small and large groups, and with each individual that participates, we set in motion a shift in the process of thinking. We enable them to see themselves as having help, hope and agency.We are confident that when we reach out to and engage individuals, at home, at work and at play, we create a coalition for lasting change on this critical issue, which hurts countless individuals, affects productivity and morale and ultimately is a public health crisis.

Ending the Silence around Gender Violence

Save abandoned, elderly widow mothers of Vrindavan from begging on streets

This Navratri, help Lalitha give kids rescued from abuse in red-light areas a safe and loving home. Donate now.

Help Manju rescue young sex trafficking victims. Donate now

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