Disha Social Organisation

Some of their activities in FY13 were as follows:

• Tackling Violence Against Women: The organisation created the Disha Women’s Cell to assist with the casework and legal aid for victims of violence. 147 cases have been registered with the Women’s Cell, of which 130 were successfully processed. They use counselling and awareness programs to do casework intervention for affected women.
• Promotion of Gender Equality: Disha organises rallies on women’s rights and female foeticide for students across college campuses in India.
• Education: They have education centres for adolescent Muslim girls aged between 12 to 18. These centres aim to improve adult literacy and provide elementary education in partnership with the Government of India. 366 girls have enrolled in Disha’s ten education centres in ten villages to help finish their primary education. The organisation conducts meetings with parents regularly, helps students to pursue higher studies, and provides information on land rights as well as employment opportunities.
• Community Development through ‘Morcha:’ Disha leads community mobilisation to address various rural development issues in the areas of capacity building regarding land, wages, social service, natural resources, social harmony, political processes, violence against women, and the right to information. The Morcha is divided into four village clusters and meetings of each cluster are held on the 24^th of every month at Disha’s training centre so that issues are discussed and strategies developed to deal with them. They also conduct an annual grain collection campaign to collect food and raise funds.

Disha’s largest donors are Miseror (Germany), Youthreach, Global Fund For Women (USA) and NABARD.