ANANDI
Area Networking and Development Initiatives (ANANDI) is a voluntary organisation (VO) working in rural and tribal areas of Gujarat since 1995. It adopts an empowerment** and a rights-based approach. Founded by five professional women with experience in the development sector, ANANDI helps poor families of the most vulnerable and marginalized groups, including the Tribals, Dalits, and Muslims to move out of poverty conditions. **can we highlight the word empowerment such that if people want to go deeper into it they can open into the following section
EMPOWERMENT IS
l About power, and changing the unequal distribution of power in society
l A process and the result of a process
l About the redistribution of social power – i.e., the rights, resources, opportunities and responsibilities of individuals and social groups in relation to one another in a given society
l Aimed at creating both equality (sameness, as in law) and equity (equal access, such as to education or health) between individuals and social groups
WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IS
§ The process, and the results of the process, through which gender and social relations are transformed
Ø In favour of women;
Ø To create greater equality and equity between men and women within social groups; and
Ø To create greater equality and equity between women and men of different social groups
Empowerment is the process by which we transform:
Ø Access to tangible (material) and non-tangible (knowledge, information, ideas) resources
Ø The ideologies that justify inequality (individual and collective consciousness)
Ø The institutions and structures that reproduce and sustain inequality (family, media, education, social, economic, legal and political institutions)
Ø Internalized oppression (self-image, self-esteem, aspirations, dreams)
Characteristics of Empowerment
¨ Individual & Collective
¨ addresses all sources & structures of power
¨ Multi-layered & multi-pronged
¨ Generates new notions of power
¨ Expands knowledge, critical / analytical thinking, choices
¨ Challenges both gender and social power relations
¨ Challenges both
¨ gender and social power relations
By Srilatha Batliwala
Presentation at ANANDI review 2006
While there are significant gains at a marco level for a county like India in terms of growth, the bottom segment of the Indian society is getting further pushed into poverty and facing new vulnerabilities. Women from poor communities are doubly disadvantages as they face gender discrimination at home, in the community and the society at large and have to face the hardships of not being able to make two ends meet.
ANANDI’s interventions therefore address gender discrimination and provide opportunities for economic upliftment while simultaneously trying to reduce other vulnerabilities.