About Us

“Let me take you back to the beginning of the organization, because we believe we are part of the new wave of feminism. That is a defining moment for us. We also call ourselves an autonomous women’s group-autonomous of political parties and government, and in terms of our decision making. When we started we did not really have any motive to say how a feminist organization should run, but we had some commitment to a very democratic collective structure. So we did not really have designations in the organization. Everybody did everything together and a lot of work was really shared collectively.”

Abha Bhaiya

Founder Member of Jagori

VISION

Helping build a just society through feminist values

MISSION & STRATEGIES

To deepen feminist consciousness with diverse partners at local and national levels through:

Feminist research and knowledge building

Perspective and capacity development on feminist principles and strategies

Providing Support Services to women survivors of violence

Supporting women’s leadership and agency

Networking for feminist movement building

OBJECTIVES

Consciousness raising and awareness building on violence, health, education, development, and other issues critical for women´s individual and collective empowerment

Advocacy on women´s rights and gender equality

Dissemination of information and knowledge on feminist concerns to meet the needs of women´s groups, NGOs, and development organisations

Production and distribution of creative material on feminist issues

POLICIES

Sexual Harassment at the Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal)

Read the Sexual Harassment at the Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and
Redressal) Code for Jagori, 2013 in English and Hindi.

Archives:
Jagori – Policy for Prevention and Redressal of Sexual Harassment (2007)

Copyright Policy

All content produced by Jagori is licensed as per Jagori’s Copyright Policy 2014, under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 Internatioal License

Legal Disclaimer for Counselling and Support

One of JAGORI’s key programmes is support and referral services for survivors of violence. Certain guidelines regarding counseling services and the ambit of work are given below.

Read More

Guidelines for the Internship programme

JAGORI is instituting an ongoing volunteer internship programme which enables young women’s rights activists and researchers to gain experience and contribute to JAGORI’s mission of advancing women’s rights. Interns should commit to a minimum four month- period in order to gain valuable exposure to a wide range of women’s human rights issues in the country.

Read More

HISTORY

JAGORI started out as a collective, and basic commitment to issues was very clear at the outset. The challenge was taking feminist consciousness to rural areas, making activism and theory come close to each other, and how to work creatively, reaching out to the main constituency, women, majority of whom were not educated. New communication tools were developed, such as feminist songs, which are still central to JAGORI’s work. Another path-breaking endeavor was feminist training, a collective learning experience, where the methods used were not only participatory, but also based on women’s ways of learning.

Carrying the concerns and currents of women’s movements to an ever-widening network of groups and organizations is central to JAGORI’s work. In over two decades of JAGORI’s work, we have reached out to grassroots women leaders in the states of Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal.

In order to understand more about JAGORI’s work, read ‘Living Feminisms’, an illustrated history of JAGORI.

Jagori has in source 10,000 materials, 260 files and 800 films in its physical repository. Its body of work – documented and undocumented – includes feminist debates, articles, papers, photos. A feminist digital archival museum was initiated in December 2014 to curate 30 year old archives housed in Jagori.

Explore this archive at
www.livingfeminisms.org

THE TEAM

Abha Bhaiya
Gouri Choudhury
Jogendra Singh Panghaal
Kamla Bhasin
Manjari Dingwaney
Runu Chakraborty
Sheba Chhachhi

Abha Bhaiya
Enakshi Ganguly Thakral
Jogendra Singh Panghaal
Kalpana Viswanath
Manak Matiyani
Manjari Dingwaney
Manjima Bhattacharjya
Martin Macwan
Nandita Gandhi
Pamela Philipose
Renu Addlakha
Suneeta Dhar

The Executive Committee is elected by the General Body and meets three times a year
Chairperson: Kalpana Viswanath
Treasurer: Manjari Dingwaney
Secretary: Manjima Bhattacharjya
Ex officio: Jayashree Velankar
Jogendra Singh Panghaal
Nandita Gandhi
Pamela Philipose
Renu Addlakha

JAGORI was founded in 1984 by -Abha Bhaiya, Kamla Bhasin, Runu Chakravarty, Gauri Choudhury, Sheba Chhacchi, Manjari Dingwaney and Jogendra Panghaal with the aim of having a creative space for women to express themselves, and spreading feminist ideology to a wider constituency of women especially in small towns and rural areas.

Amrita
Bhim
Chandrayee
Hirawati
Ishu
Jayashree
Kailash
Khushboo
Laxmi
Mahabir
Meera
Nidhi
Niharica
Nourati
Poonam
Preeti
Ruhi
Sachin
Sarita
Savita
Shalini
Shiney
Sourabh
Sunita
Sunita Thakur
Sushma
Tulsi

R.K. Sharda

JAGORI was founded in 1984 by -Abha Bhaiya, Kamla Bhasin, Runu Chakravarty, Gauri Choudhury, Sheba Chhacchi, Manjari Dingwaney and Jogendra Panghaal with the aim of having a creative space for women to express themselves, and spreading feminist ideology to a wider constituency of women especially in small towns and rural areas.

AWARDS &
RECOGNITION

Jagori awarded the Nari Shakti Puraskar

08.03.2016

On International Women’s Day – 8th March, 2016, the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India awarded Jagori , along with 5 other organisations and 15 individuals with the Nari Shakti Puraskar – “for outstanding work for welfare and well-being of women”.

The award was given out by the Hon’ble President of India, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee.

Founded by six women and one man in 1984, Jagori has been a pioneer and a follower – a part of larger movements and processes – as it pursued its vision of building a just society through feminist values. Some of Jagori’s interventions are seen as best practices around the world – this includes recent work on gender and access to water and sanitation in low income communities research on women’s safety in cities  and the Safe Delhi Campaign; and the Youth and Safety project.

Jagori has worked as a partner to various institutions and Government Departments, providing unbiased, independent technical inputs on gender, where required. Jagori was technical partner in the Gender Equality Project, providing strategic gender inputs that enabled thousands of women across eight districts in four of the poorest states to recognize and access rights and entitlements. This is now scaled up to 27 disctricts in seven states.

Jagori’s primers on gender, feminism, violence against women, and masculinity, and its feminist songs are popularly used by activists and development professionals. Jagori runs a feminist counseling centre for women survivors of violence.

Jagori acknowledges its fellow feminist travelers – founders and board members, advisors, community women and youth, activists of the women’s movement, volunteers and interns, team members, consultants, resource persons, donors, partners and well wishers, who have been a part of this journey since its inception in 1984.

Jagori, India receives the Roland Berger Human Dignity Award 2012/13

16.04.2013

Berlin, 16th April 2013

The “Roland Berger Human Dignity Award” for 2012/13 was conferred by the President of the Bundestag Dr.Norbert Lammert,  to the Indian women’s rights organisation “Jagori”; the Pakistani lawyer and women’s rights activist Dr. Asma Jahangir; and the “Afghan Women’s Network”.

Jagori, represented by their leaders Suneeta Dhar and Kalpana Viswanath, received the award for long and successful commitment to women’s rights in India. One of their current campaigns is the “Safe Delhi Campaign” for more security of women in the Indian capital. The campaign has successfully enrolled the participation of multiple stakeholders for the setting up of helplines for victims of sexual harassment and violence; training of bus drivers and conductors in dealing with sexual assault in public transport; ensuring of better urban infrastructure including street lighting; and communities better aligned to women’s safety.


Suneeta Dhar, Director of Jagori, spoke on the occasion. Her speech follows:

Excellencies: President of the German Parliament;

Prof. Roland Berger, Board of Trustees, Awards Committee, Staff of the Roland Berger Foundation

Our esteemed sister awardees, Asma Jahangir from Pakistan, Hasina and Leeda from Afghanistan,

Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.

On behalf of Jagori, we are honoured to receive this award with gratitude and humility. This award for respecting, promoting and protecting human dignity and human rights comes at a moment in history, when the safety of women and girls from all walks of life has become a rallying point for millions across India and the world. This new upsurge resonates and affirms the work of the women’s movement globally and locally, that has over the past three decades, brought the issue of violence against women into the human rights paradigm. While affirming that women’s rights are human rights, they have continued to confront the fact that violence against women is a “manifestation of the unequal power relations”, and exists in all societies.

The award recognizes the collective work of Jagori over the last three decades and I pay tribute today to the founders, women and men colleagues, women from the communities we work with, all of who dreamt of alternatives, shaping Jagori and paving the path for young women and men to champion the cause for women’s equality, dignity and gender justice.

A few lines from our co-founder Kamla Bhasin, best reflects our philosophy:

I’m learning how to read so that I can read my own life

I’m learning how to write so that I can write my own destiny

I’m learning how to count so that I can keep an account of my own rights

Hand in hand, we shall move ahead…

Jagori has been reaching out to thousands of women in rural, tribal and urban communities in creating a new feminist consciousness and weaving their own dreams. As we would say in Hindi: ‘zindagi apni savareigein’.

Jagori affirms women’s right to freedom, autonomy and bodily integrity and to safe and inclusive spaces, free from fear and violence.

The recent incident in Delhi in December 16, 2012 catalysed the worlds’ attention to respond with stronger political, legal and institutional measures to eliminate cultures of violence. I pay tribute to the young sister who battled for her life for 13 days, inspiring a historic process. In India, this led to a path breaking report by the Justice Verma Committee and the subsequent passing of the law against sexual assault and rape.

More recently at the CSW meeting in New York led by UN Women, governments of the world adopted a global document which asserted that discrimination and violence against women and girls has no place in the 21st century. Michele Bachelet, the former Head of UN Women – partner of Jagori said – “There is no turning back.”

And indeed for Jagori, there is no turning back. Interestingly, our logo of Jagori’s twentieth  year celebrations (in 2003) was No turning back!

The prize money will be used by Jagori to strengthen an integrated response to survivors of violence and create safe spaces through preventive work. This involves collaboration to transform institutions for long term change. We believe that this cannot be achieved without nurturing strong collectives of women, and ensuring an intersectional approach with perspectives from marginalized groups – dalits, tribals, LGBT, single women, migrant & trafficked women, women with disabilities and several others.

We deeply appreciate the opportunity for embarking on another creative journey and thank Prof. Berger and the Foundation for supporting us.

This is also a moment for us to acknowledge the meaningful partnerships Jagori has had with German organisations such as the BfW-EED and Misereor for the past over two decades.

Having come this far, we recognize that there are many challenges ahead of us; which can only be undertaken in solidarity with our sisters/networks across the region and globally.

The “One Billion Rising” global movement that we celebrated recently across South Asia by Sangat, signalled that the world is not willing any more to tolerate violence against women – anywhere. Not in the Congo, not in Syria, not in India, not in Europe…nowhere!  This past week at the G8 meeting in London, Foreign ministers have resolved to work together to end sexual violence in combat zones.

Social attitudes, it is often argued, take generations to change. Certainly patriarchy is deeply entrenched, not just in India, but all over the world and it manifests itself in different ways.  Even the mighty Berlin Wall crumbled one day. We are on the cusp of change, driven by the energy and passion of the young women and men who occupied the streets of Delhi, and the insights and wisdom of the strong women’s movement in our country.

As I accept this award on behalf of Jagori, I leave you with some lines – from one of the movement songs:

Tod Tod ke Bandhano ko, dekho bahen aati hain, Aayenge Zulm Mitayagein, Woh to Naya Zamana Layeingi!

Breaking the shackles of violence, women lead the way, bringing in a new world!

Thank you!!

ANNUAL
REPORTS
&
FINANCIAL
STATEMENTS

Annual Reports document Jagori’s work over the year, including the achievements, new learnings and challenges

Annual Report 2022-23


Financial Statement 2022-23

Annual Report 2021-22


Financial Statement 2021-22

Annual Report 2020-21


Financial Statement 2020-21

FCRA
REPORTING