Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from EKTA!

EKTA's media coverage continues to be positive. Last week a great article in the city section of The Hindu detailed our study on Tamil Nadu's Family Courts and what changes need to be implemented to make the courts more effective and accessible for women. The article can be accessed online here.

Madurai's Lotus News channel attended part of our New Year's celebration this past Saturday and members of our team gave interviews on the recent tragedy in Delhi, rape culture in India, and efforts like the Safe Cities campaign which strive to create critical changes to promote women's safety and well-being. The EKTA team is currently brainstorming how to best bring the Safe Cities campaign to Madurai, and we will begin conducting safety audits to assess existing problems in public spaces (for instance, inadequate street lighting). We are planning to unveil the results of this survey and our recommendations for fixing safety deficits at our One Billion Rising culmination event on February 14th.

In other news, we have completed our five-year plan for 2013-2017 and are looking forward to our next big projects! In the new year, OBR and Safe Madurai will be priorities, as well as capacity building efforts to create greater awareness and more effective implementation and enforcement of CEDAW in the southern region of India. 

Have a safe and happy New Year! 

 Lotus News channel conducting interviews at the EKTA office in Madurai

New Year's greetings from EKTA

Next phase planning for EKTA

The past week has been spent planning EKTA's goals and strategies for the next five years. Our ultimate goals remain the same -- creating a gender just society and eliminating discrimination based on gender, class, caste, and religion -- but we are reflecting on past strategies and reaffirming what courses of action we will need to take to meet these aims. Many of our priorities are simply being re-articulated for effectiveness and clarity, such as emphasizing the prevention of violence against women as a distinct concern, although it has always been of great importance to EKTA. EKTA will also remain committed to capacity building, research and documentation, and campaigns, lobbying, and grassroots advocacy. 

We have many continuing projects, including the Safe Cities for Women campaigns and capacity building for elected women leaders in Tamil Nadu, as well as many exciting new projects in development, so stay tuned! (Particularly for details on the culmination of One Billion Rising on February 14th, which we will be sharing shortly).

Here are some fantastic pictures from the Ahayla/OBR launch event. Enjoy! 

 Full house at the Tamil Nadu Chamber of Commerce and Industry 

 Superintendent of Police V. Balakrishnan releasing the One Billion Rising launch poster to C. Ramasubramanian, State Nodal Officer of Mental Health Programme in Tamil Nadu

The protagonist of "Ahalya," a dancer from Asmita Resource Centre for Women, Hyderabad

 Members of the Asmita dance group

 Signing the One Billion Rising pledge poster

EKTA successfully launches ONE BILLION RISING campaign

After months of preparation, EKTA and SANGAT's Nov. 28th event was a phenomenal success. Nearly every seat in the Tamil Nadu Chamber of Commerce auditorium was filled with supporters, college students, press, team members, volunteers, and honorees, and hundreds of attendees signed a pledge to join the One Billion Rising campaign on February 14, 2012. The event's main speakers -- Dr. V. Vasanthi Devi (former Chairperson of Tamil Nadu State Commission for Women), Mr. Thiru V. Balakrishnan (IPS Superintendent of Police, Madurai), and Dr. C. Ramasubramanian (State Nodal Officer, Mental Health Programme, Tamil Nadu) -- gave powerful speeches detailing their experiences and observations of the reality of violence against women in India and Tamil Nadu. Caste, economic, and educational variables all play a role in such violence, and efforts to seek redressal have varying levels of success, if redressal is even pursued. 

The speeches, while sobering, served as strong reminders of the importance of campaigns such as One Billion Rising or the 16 Days Campaign, which strive to eliminate violence against women through combined individual, regional, and global efforts. Citing the fact that an estimated one in three women -- or one billion women -- will be subjected to violence at some point in their lives, Ms. Bimla Chandrasekar, Director of EKTA, officially announced the launch of the One Billion Rising campaign. In celebration of the launch, the ASMITA Resource Centre for Women, Hyderabad, put on a beautiful and moving performance of "Ahalya," which captivated the audience with vibrant costumes, graceful and powerful movements, and a feminist moral.

The event received some wonderful press coverage; click on the link below to read more!

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/violence-against-women-is-deeprooted/article4145454.ece