UDAAN

Vision
To achieve empowerment of women by ensuring that their fundamental political and socio-economic rights are met.

Mission
To create a gender-just, equitable and humane society through capacity-building of individuals at all levels of governance and society.

Approach
Udaan believes that a holistic approach is the only way to address the deep-rooted causes of gender issues as well as their multitudinal effect on all aspects of life. We therefore adopt a multi-pronged approach that includes planning and implementation of focused programmes at a micro level as well as research, policymaking at a macro level.



WHY WOMEN FOCUS

If a woman’s life and her socio-economic and political progress are considered markers of a society’s own progress, India falls woefully short.
We have a skewed child sex ratio at 924 girls for every 1,000 boys;
A female infant mortality rate of 42 per 1000 live births, with girls being more likely to die than boys;
India accounts for the maximum number of maternal deaths in the world with 50000 of the 2.89lakh women dying due to complications in childbirth.
A stunted rate of female literacy at 65.46%, with 53% of girls between the age of 5 and 9 remaining illiterate;
An alarming child marriage rate with 43% of girls being forced into marriage before the age of 18;
A shockingly high rate of crimes against women with 3 rapes, 3 cases of kidnapping and abduction and 5 cases of molestations reported every hour;
And poor political representation of women with only 58 women MPs out of 530 members.
That a large portion of women in India do not have basic socio-economic and political rights further points to the systemic nature of gender discrimination in the country.
We at Udaan believe that ensuring the fundamental rights of all women is crucial not just for their benefit, but for the benefit of the country as a whole. The importance of gender equity in all aspects is further highlighted by the fact that gender parity and women empowerment has been cited as a UN Millenium Development Goal for the role it plays in alleviation of poverty.




Our Projects

Project Shaksham: Capacity Building of Elected Women Representatives at Panchayati Raj Institutions.
The 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, which strengthens women’s representation in local governance by offering 33% reservation in Panchayati Raj Institutions, has seen more than a million women being elected at the village, block and district levels. While this noteworthy Amendement has led to an undeniable increase in representation, it has failed to translate that representation into effective participation.
Through a series of focused training workshops, Project Shaksham aims to bridge this gap between representation and participation, in the process churning out empowered and effective leaders and decision makers. Effective communication skills, leadership skills, gender sensitization, awareness of government policies and programmes – these are just some of the topics the workshops will cover. Additionally, follow-ups to the workshops will focus on helping women plan and implement programmes in their jurisdiction, while also putting them in touch with other EWRs group that can mentor and motivate them.



Project Vidya : Education and Adult Literacy
The Census of 2011 revealed that the literacy rate in India stands at 72.99%, with male literacy at 80.89% and female literacy at a dismal 64.4%. The situation is worse still in rural areas where the overall literacy stands at 67.67% with rural male literacy at 77.15% and rural female literacy at 57.93%. These figures mean that more than 282.59 million individuals continue to be illiterate in India.
Given the key role it plays in community health, voter education, employment generation, and economic development, it is crucial that we work towards ensuring greater literacy among the populace. Towards this end, Udaan will implement Project Vidya. The Project will adopt a multi-pronged approach, planned and developed after assessing the needs of a community and keeping in mind their most urgent literacy needs.
Project Vidya will:
Facilitate the implementation of RTE by enrolling more children in the formal system of education.
Campaign to help the girl child get enrolled in schools
Conduct thorough follow-up to ensure students do not drop-out of schools.
Implement adult literacy programmes that will make women and men functional literates, and provide numeracy to non-literates
Project Jaagrathi: Sexual and Reproductive Health
Violations of women’s sexual and reproductive health rights are frequent and take many forms including denial of access to services that are essential to maintain the health of women, or poor quality services, subjecting women’s access to services to third party authorization, and performance of procedures related to women’s reproductive and sexual health without the woman’s consent, including forced sterilization, forced virginity examinations, and forced abortion.
The objective of Project Jaagrathi is to:
Provide access to information, knowledge and counselling services to help ensure the health and well-being of women and their families, including advice on family planning.
Advocate good health practises through campaigns
Ensure that the obligation of states to take deliberate, concrete, and targeted steps towards fulfilling the right to health in the context of pregnancy and childbirth are met
Remove barriers to and providing access to health services and promoting community health
Collaborate with our partners to ensure that reproductive rights and SRH are given increased priority in policies, planning and budget allocations in Health and other relevant sectors.

Project Swayam: Economic Empowerment through Skill Development
Economic empowerment is a crucial component of women’s empowerment, and one that can be achieved in rural India through vocational training and skill development initiatives. Ensuring that women play a more active role in contributing to the economy is important not only because of the benefits to the country and community, but to individuals and families as well. Financial independence will give women the strength and courage to stand on their own two feet. Their experience of financial independence will also impress upon them the importance of socio-economic and political rights, giving them the confidence to step forth and demand equal rights.
Under Project Swayam, we will:
Implement vocational training programmes that are holistic in nature, and include a range of subjects and topics that ensure employability of beneficiaries.
Liaise with major industries to tailor-make content for vocational training programmes according to the demands of local job markets to ensure employment opportunities for beneficiaries
Liaise with the local administration to create greater awareness of the vocational training initiatives of the government.
Implement thorough and intensive entrepreneurship training programmes for women.

Project Shakti: Addressing Violence against Women
Recent data from the National Crime Records Bureau suggests that crimes against women have more than doubled over the last ten years. Domestic violence has been found to be the most reported crime with 10 cases being reported every hour, adding up to more than 909,713 cases in the last decade. India reports 3 rapes, 3 cases of kidnapping and abduction and 5 cases of molestations – every hour. This is to say nothing of unreported crimes which, experts believe, are innumerable. Studies conducted in 2011 found that more than 66% of the women surveyed had been sexually harassed between two to five times in a year. The rate of violence against women is undeniably alarming, prompting many to term it an “epidemic.”
Udaan’s Project Shakti aims to emulate globally proven strategies of prevention, by modifying them to better address the problems of rural beneficiaries. The Project will adopt a multi-pronged approach that includes:
Creating awareness about violence against women,
Conducting workshops that help participants identify causes of violence and learn how to prevent them,
Providing information about how and where to access support when violence has occurred
Encouraging beneficiaries to report cases of violence
Providing access to legal representation


Project Perinaya : Gender Sensitization
A lot of the issues women face today can be traced back to deeply entrenched patriarchal views as well as a lack of understanding about gender and its impact on social, political and economic rights. Udaan’s Project Perinaya looks at dismantling and questioning harmful long term beliefs and superstitions that have thus far held women back from reaching their full potential.
Under Project Perinaya the concept of gender and gender issues will be explored in a non-confrontational manner through well designed workshops that employ participatory methods. The content will be kept simple and easy to understand, without compromising on the desired impact.
This Project will also lay the foundation for the implementation of other Udaan projects, as we believe that it is only with a thorough understanding of the problem and its implications that we will be able to garner the complete support and participation of beneficiaries.