Unitarian Universalist Holdeen India Program Partners
All India Disaster Mitigation Institute
All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI), India, is a community based action research, action planning and action advocacy organization. It works towards bridging the gap between policy, practice, and research related to disaster mitigation, in an effort to link the community to the (inter)national level humanitarian scenario.
Asmita Collective
Visit the Asmita Collective website.
Astha Santhsan
Astha is a Hindi word, which means “deep faith or conviction.” We have “faith in the people”—faith that people have abilities, strengths and knowledge to solve the problems they face. Poor people are marginalized, exploited, deprived, and usually do not recognize their strength—but Astha does!
The Mission of Astha is to help People to organize, expand their capacities and equip themselves for the struggles they must wage to overcome the various deprivations under which they live.
Breakthrough
Breakthrough is an international human rights organization that uses education and popular culture to promote dignity, equality, and justice.CREA
- CREA believes that every woman, regardless of her status in life, has an inherent right to dignity. To enjoy this dignity, her human rights must be affirmed.
- CREA is a women’s human rights organization that empowers women to articulate, demand and access their human rights by enhancing women’s leadership and building networks at the local, regional and international levels.
- CREA works on sexuality, sexual and reproductive rights, violence against women, human rights, and social justice.
- For CREA, leadership is a process through which women assert their rights by continually evaluating relevant experiences, questioning their roles in society, challenging power structures and effectively catalyzing positive social change.
- CREA is based in the global South and led by women from the global South.
DISHA
Disha is a mass-based organization in Gujarat that started in 1985 with the aim of altering societal power relationships in favor of the poor to produce social change. Disha believes that only through altering the power balance among different communities may our current society be transformed into a more equitable one.
Our work espouses the ideal of self-determination ñ all individuals are entitled to control the natural, economic, political and other resources necessary for them to determine the course of their own lives. In reality, however, the vast majority of people are deprived of the ability to choose for themselves ñ instead, economic hardship makes choices for them. The founder of Disha, M.D. Mistry recognized this and was inspired to fight for economic justice in order to work towards social justice.
Since its inception, Disha has worked alongside socially marginalized communities in primarily tribal societies and other landless labourers to support organized action from within the community against the social structures promoting an unjust distribution of wealth and power. Disha is issue based, rather than geographically based or project based. Disha has several components, each of which is designed to reinforce the concept of holistic and integrated development of rural Gujarat. Rather than simply treating the symptoms of a dysfunctional public sector and poor governance, Disha has evolved to work on broad-scale works that address the underdevelopment of the aforementioned.
People's Watch
The Vision of People's Watch is "To create a society free from human rights violations and discrimination by cultivating a human rights culture through the participation of a pluralistic society."
From 1995-98, People's Watch concentrated its activities on monitoring of human rights violations. This was the mandate of its governing body and the Program Advisory Board. It was soon realized that monitoring alone was insufficient. In 1998, People's Watch began legal intervention on behalf of victims. By 2000, this work had grown and more field monitoring associates were hired at both zonal and regional levels. By 2001, People's Watch was working in 11 areas of Tamil Nadu. Soon after, the need to launch a full-fledged awareness building Campaign for Human Rights became clear, and this was followed, soon afterward, by the realization that victim rehabilitation was also essential. Monitoring, intervention and even winning compensation from the courts was not enough for those who had survived torture, abuse and imprisonment. They desperately needed medical, psychological and vocational help as well. Preceding the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education, People's Watch began a vigorous training and education program.
Paromita Goswami
Unitarian Universalist Holdeen India Partner Paromita Goswami, Founder and President of Elgar Pratishthan, which works for the indigenous and rural poor of the Chandrapur and Gadchiroli districts of Maharashtra, India, has been selected as a 2005 Yale World Fellow.
Martin Macwan
- Biography
- Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award Recipient
- Featured in New York Times Article
- "It's Time to Act on Caste Bias," The Washington Post (9/01)
- Honored by Human Rights Watch
Vivek and Vidyullata Pandit
Keshav Nanka
- Biography
- 1999 Anti-Slavery Award Recipient
For more information contact holdeen @ uua.org.
Last updated on Friday, April 18, 2008.
