More about Vishakha

You already know that the idea of the NGO is women empowerment. In this post you'll find out more about how Vishakha is doing its work.

Let's start with the structure of the organisation. Vishakha has staff of around 50 people working on offices around Rajasthan and on the field. My internship is concentrated on the Udaipur office and Salumbar office, where the latter was a base for introductory trips around the countryside. Main office is located in Jaipur and there are also other offices.

Main force of the staff are the cluster-in-charges, the people who are the first contact to local villagers wherever Vishakha has projects. Every c-i-c has a cluster of villages under his/her responsibility where they contribute to the women empowering work in many ways. Then there are the block coordinators who have block of clusters under them, coordinating with the villages and cluster-in-charges. Blocks form districts that are the responsibility of district team members.

All the time there are special concentration points for Vishakha where most of the effort is put. At the moment the three main points of concentration for Vishakha are domestic violence, girl empowerment and counceling centres for the youth.

First there is the big problem of violence against women, specifically domestic violence, where more attention is needed across the country. Vishakha challenges the violence by providing community based programmes, by researching on experiences of violence, by building capacities for case work in violence intervention and with the Mahila Salah evam Suraksha Kendra centres, among other things. The MSSKs are centres where women facing violence can seek support. Counceling and linking women with essential services such as legal advice, medical services and support for short stay are some of the services MSSK centres provide.Vishakha also has the MSSK module for other organizations to spread the much needed centres.

The other priority for Vishakha at the moment is the Adolescent Girls Initiative where the NGO is concentrating on girls between 11 an 19 years of age. In the UNFPA AGI project the concentration point is the thinking process so instead of, for example, supplying the families of the girls with food or other necessities, the programme aims to make the girls more initiative and wants them to stand on their own feet. Staying in schools longer and not marrying or having babies at a very young age are the main goals of the initiative. Important object of the AGI is to get the girls out of their rather sheltered lives and to see and understand more of the society and of the world.

Third main concentration point for Vishakha at the moment are the counseling centres. In this very new project started in Jaipur and Baghru in 2014 Vishakha is working closely with the youth in the villages.