Shadhika

Reading Time: < 1 minutes Shadhika exists to equip girls in India with the skills and confidence to overcome the violence, discrimination, and injustice that deny their human rights. Those rights are inalienable and justice is indivisible. We believe that the fight for gender equity in India is inextricably tied to the fight for racial justice in the U.S. We support   

Reading Time: 4 minutes As much of the world has slowed down to manage the spread of COVID-19, the Shadhika Scholars program has steadily continued this year. We are pleased to share our 2020 Shadhika Scholars and about our scholarship program.  Our annual application process begins in March, as young women from our partner sites apply for a chance   

Reading Time: 2 minutes Cyclone Amphan made landfall close to Sundarbans between West Bengal and Bangladesh on Wednesday afternoon, washing away Indian islands to the mainland and uprooting trees and electricity poles in six-and-a-half hours that left Kolkata and most of south Bengal pulverized. Early reports show the cyclone claimed 10 to 12 lives in West Bengal and destroyed over 5,500   

Reading Time: 5 minutes Shadhika is celebrating the graduation of 8 scholars this year! These young women of Shadhika have broken barriers, overcome challenges, and persevered to receive undergraduate degrees that are so well deserved.  This is Shadhika’s third graduating class, who will now join a group of 30 Shadhika Alumnae paving the path for Shadhika’s future. Two graduates   

Reading Time: 2 minutes Shadhika is proud to join The Deliver for Good Campaign and over 700 organizations from across 100 countries to advocate for the world’s governments to apply a gender lens and put girls, women, and gender equality at the center of COVID-19 preparedness, response, and recovery. The following is an excerpt from the open letter, which   

Reading Time: 4 minutes Dear Friends, In June of last year Kim Burnett, Shadhika’s long time President and CEO, announced to the Board of Directors she would be stepping down this spring. This news was relayed to the Shadhika community in the January 2020 newsletter.  While the board was saddened by this news, we immediately formed a Transition Committee and got   

Reading Time: 6 minutes As we all know India is a country of many religions and celebrations. In all the festivals, we show respect to all religions and care for each other. During a festival, we are closer to each other and get the chance to learn more about other cultures and religions. The Ramadan month This year, Ramadan   

Reading Time: 4 minutes Shadhika’s Making HERstory interns share how they are managing classes while their universities and community centers are closed under lockdown. How have your studies have been affected during the lockdown? Pranjuckta: Studies are affected very badly. The lockdown is breaking the continuity of our days –going to school, coming home, doing homework. Two of my   

Reading Time: 3 minutes We all know the current situation in the world. We are all doing our best to follow precautions and maintain social distancing to prevent Covid-19 from spreading. In India, we are on lockdown for so many days and will continue this until May 3. I live in Mumbai, in a slum area. Here, there are   

Reading Time: 2 minutes Sabah, a member of Shadhika’s staff, is working from home for the first time during a national lockdown. She lives in Mumbai with her family. The current situation is becoming worse day by day. Everyone here is taking precautions and maintaining social distance. Before I would go to a co-working office, but due to coronavirus   

Reading Time: 2 minutes For many, “going virtual” during the pandemic has been quite easy. In the U.S. we are accustomed to the idea of working remotely, and many businesses and even more universities and schools have adapted to this crisis relatively easily through virtual work and learning. However, in low-income communities where internet can be inconsistent and telecommunications   

Reading Time: 4 minutes What does it really mean to “social-distance” in India, a country with more than 1 billion residents? This week, we asked the young women of Shadhika and our partner sites about their experiences social distancing under lockdown. From the Field A typically crowded and energetic place, the community of Bowbazar in Bengal, where our partner   

Reading Time: 3 minutes This week, the young women we support and our partners shared more about the current climate in India being under a lockdown. A common theme that came through from their reports was a lack of access to proper, preventative hygiene. Wash your hands with our Making HERstory Interns Shadhika’s four Making HERstory interns, Afreen, Pranjuckta,   

Reading Time: 4 minutes Dear Friends and Supporters of Shadhika – The COVID-19 outbreak has shown all of us how interconnected we are and how small our big world has become. We are seeing how each of our individual actions impact each other– even if we are half a world away. Whether we are in India or the U.S.,   

Reading Time: 5 minutes This week, Shadhika and Kiran Anjali Project (KAP) had the pleasure of inviting Navya, a Shadhika Scholar with our partner site Baale Mane in Bangalore, India, to the United States. While Navya’s original itinerary included speaking at Shadhika and KAP fundraisers this week, plans changed due to concerns of health and safety, so we flew