Projects

In the remote villages of Uttarakhand, a multitude of young girls from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds are hindered from realizing their full potential. Barriers such as deeply ingrained patriarchal traditions, lack of awareness, limited resources, inaccessibility to information, and insufficient skills restrict their access to essential education, healthcare, and social support. These girls face pervasive social taboos, gender-based discrimination, and stigma, all compounded by the region's crumbling health and education infrastructure, inadequate understanding of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) practices, domestic violence, and limited livelihood opportunities. This adverse environment creates a dual challenge where girls are discouraged from voicing their concerns, believing that their opinions hold no significance, while society further reinforces their marginalization. This program aims to address these underlying issues by raising awareness among adolescent girls (AGs) and equipping them with knowledge, information, and critical life skills in these remote villages. The goal is to nurture these AGs into independent and well-informed citizens capable of making conscious decisions for a better life. Through this intervention, AGs will gain a better understanding of gender, gender-based discrimination, and violence, as well as the principles of gender justice. This enhanced awareness will enable them to comprehend their development challenges more effectively. Empowered with the belief that their voices matter and equipped with media skills to document their experiences across various platforms, these girls will carve out their own space in the societal development process. These well-informed AGs, armed with their newfound media skills, will actively raise awareness about the challenges they face at local, district, state, and national levels. This engagement will challenge the pervasive ideology that hinders them from recognizing their voices and participating in decision-making processes. Utilizing the Charkha platform, these AGs will ensure their voices resonate with not only the general public but also policymakers through diverse media channels. Over the course of three years, the concerted voices of these AGs, residing in some of the most remote villages, will reach urban households, government authorities, and administrative bodies, questioning the claims of development and advocating for a brighter future. Furthermore, this initiative will secure a rightful place for the voices of young girls and women from rural areas within the mainstream media. At a time when the representation of women journalists is declining annually, the project's impact will challenge this trend. Between 2015 and 2020, the percentage of women reporters in print media dropped significantly from 43% to 13%, and in television from 60% to 52%. A similar decline is observed in media coverage of female subjects. This program is set to reverse this trend and ensure that these underrepresented voices find their deserved space in mainstream media narratives. Phase 1 of this project commenced in September 2021 and successfully concluded in April 2023. Over a brief yet impactful period of 19 months, we directly engaged with more than 800 adolescent girls across 15 villages in the Garur and Kapkot blocks of Bageshwar, Uttarakhand. In the ongoing phase, we are set to expand our efforts and work with an even larger cohort, reaching over 2,000 girls in 18 villages. Our primary focus will remain on fortifying their leadership skills and empowering them through various strategic initiatives. Read the articles written by these young girls HERE.

The project's primary objective is to empower young members of rural communities with the information, knowledge, training, and tools necessary for effectively addressing the challenges faced by their communities, with a particular focus on women, during times of crisis, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, natural hazards and its short- and long-term impacts. To achieve this, state-specific modules are developed to enhance the understanding of participants of various factors influencing their community's development, including disasters, climate change, pandemics (e.g., Covid-19), and more. Within our thoughtfully structured workshops, participants explore the intricate intersection between these state-specific phenomena and the socio-economic factors that disproportionately affect the most marginalized segments of society, including dalits, adivasis, women, the elderly, physically disabled individuals, and children. New rural writers are receiving training in honing their writing skills, while experienced volunteer trainers are undergoing basic visual storytelling and editing training, preparing them to create engaging vlogs that resonate on social media platforms. The content generated during these workshops, encompassing articles, photographs, vlogs, and videos, will be pivotal components of advocacy campaigns. These campaigns aim to champion socio-economic changes in rural and remote areas, bolstering their preparedness and resilience for future crises. This project serves a dual purpose: first, to equip writers and trainers with the knowledge and skills needed for effective advocacy during crises, ensuring that the ground realities of rural areas, often overlooked by national media, take center stage. Second, it seeks to advocate for prompt policy actions that respond to the urgent needs of these communities. As part of this project, we are working with 100 young girls and boys from some of the most difficult regions across Ladakh, J&K and Bihar. Read the articles written by these young girls and boys HERE.

Project Abhivyanjana (Expression) is dedicated to improving the quality of life for Adolescent Girls (AGs) by establishing a sustainable two-way communication network. This network empowers AGs, aged 14-20, from underserved communities in the border villages of Bikaner district, Rajasthan. These areas are characterized by extreme marginalization and poor human development indicators, especially for young girls and women. Situated near the international border, this region often remains disconnected from the country's development initiatives, rendering the struggle of communities, particularly young girls and women, largely unheard and unnoticed. The primary goal of Project Abhivyanjana is to enhance the leadership skills of AGs, equipping them with the tools to challenge and transform gender-inequitable attitudes that hinder their participation in the country's development. In addition to imparting knowledge and information, Charkha conducts skill-building workshops, providing young girls from these border villages with a platform to amplify their voices through various forms of media. They write articles, create poetry, produce videos to express their opinions, report on issues relevant to them, and shed light on unfair practices impacting adolescent girls. The content generated in these workshops is published and broadcasted through Charkha's trilingual feature service in Hindi, English, and Urdu. This outreach creates spaces for crucial discussions on these issues and fosters the demand for both immediate and long-term change. Charkha adopts a rights-based approach to work with 60 AGs over 3 years, chosen from strategically selected villages, transforming them into leaders. After the project's completion, these leaders will continue the initiative independently, with Charkha's guidance available whenever needed. The project aspires to contribute to the increase in the number of grassroots women journalists in India, offering a career option to these young girls. This holistic approach endeavors to empower AGs and raise their voices while influencing change at various levels of society and media.

Numerous grassroots organizations are tirelessly addressing development challenges in the farthest corners of the country, catering to the most marginalized communities residing far from the coverage of mainstream media. These groups focus on communities historically and socially pushed to fringes, often excluded from the nation's development processes. These dedicated organizations possess profound commitment, knowledge, and conviction. They comprehend local issues, devise innovative solutions, engage with villagers, and confront socio-cultural biases impeding the development process. Despite their commendable work and transformative impact in areas most in need, they encounter difficulties in effectively documenting their initiatives, sharing their progress with communities, the administration, other organizations, and regional, state, and national media. Charkha initiated a pilot study involving 20 such organizations operating in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, and Delhi NCR to explore their communication challenges. The findings revealed that many of these organizations struggle with internal documentation and the dissemination of their work, hindering their ability to reach a broader audience. The existing gap in training and knowledge transfer has created a disconnect between their efforts and the wider development community. These 20 organizations recognize that utilizing media platforms to communicate their successes and challenges can bridge this gap, engaging audiences that include development workers, policymakers, and the general public at regional, state, and national levels. However, they currently lack the necessary skills, motivation, and access to media. Charkha will collaborate with these organizations, enhancing their capacity to understand the intersecting factors of development, gender, caste, and class. The project will also build their skills in using various media formats to document, highlight, and share their stories with a larger audience. Through this initiative, individuals working for and with these organizations will develop the ability to manage their communication and media functions independently, without relying on external support. By bringing their narratives, challenges, and achievements to a broader audience in their own voices, these organizations aim to increase the participation and representation of rural communities and their development concerns in mainstream and alternative media, which are predominantly urban-dominated. This effort will establish platforms for sharing and learning among organizations addressing similar challenges, even in different regions. Charkha's project will span two years, focusing on 16 grassroots organizations working in extremely challenging geographies in rural Rajasthan and serving the most vulnerable groups, amplifying their reach and impact