Centre for Social Research

Centre for Social Research
Founded 1983
Type Human Rights
Focus Gender equality, Women's Rights, Children's Rights, Child Education
Location
Method Education, Service
Key people
 Director Dr. Ranjana Kumari
Website www.csrindia.org

The Centre for Social Research (CSR), established in 1983, is an advocacy group for women based in New Delhi, India. The group tries to bring attention and justice to all marginalized and underprivileged areas of society. They offer services to women and girls throughout the country, and focus on restructuring gender relations with the aim of creating a more humane, equitable and gender-just society.[1]

Empowerment of women

Founded in 1997, the Gender Training Institute (GTI) strives to facilitate the empowerment of women and social justice through capacity building and training-related activities. GTI’s trainings investigate gendered interactions happening in other areas of life like media, economy, politics and culture. Leadership skills and the ability to address gender issues in their lives and that of society will be passed on to participants.[2] With the support of the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF), GTI also founded a program “Enhancing the Role of Women in Strengthening Democracy", where 1000 women leaders were geared up to run for and serve in state and national political offices.[2] Crisis Intervention Centres (CICs) are also managed under the understanding that fighting gender-based violence involves direct assistance as well as sensitization and mobilization of grassroots communities.[2]

GTI has also implemented a project on "Promotion of Women's Rights through Networking, Lobbying, Advocacy and Capacity Building". The 3rd phase of the project was successfully completed with as much success on initiating the 4th phase of the project which incorporated Men and boys in the process.[3] Another initiative of GTI was to commence the first one of its kind online course launched on "Training women in leadership and Democracy"[4] which was well received by students and the media.[3]

Eliminating sex selection

Eliminating Female infanticide in long term will resolve the biasness towards sex selection. CSR has successfully implemented the Meri Shakti, Meri Beti (My Daughter, My Strength) project[5] to reduce pre-natal sex selection. It has organized over 40 Community Outreach Programs, nine Community Watch Group meetings, two Expert Group meetings and one Interface Workshop in the Kurukshetra district of Haryana state.[6]

The second workshop for the Meri Shakti, Meri Beti project was initiated by Manasi Mishra who emphasized issues regarding the social and economic implications of pre-natal sex selection. Results indicated 100 students had signed the petition and pledged to support the prevention of female foeticide in their communities.[6] In addition, a continuous effort is made by reaching out to the public, creating awareness through campaigns and workshops to increase the sex ratio. These will also serve as educating materials to the local communities in encouraging their taking a stand against sex selection.[5]

Women’s education

One of the projects under CSR is to provide free education to underprivileged children specifically targeted at girls. CSR operates several schools such as a primary school Parivartan Praveshika in Etawah that aims to provide primary school education for girls who have never attended school or had early drop-outs. Furthermore, CSR has an adult literacy program that functions as a non-formal education and also counseling regarding violence against women. With such project initiatives, CSR managed to provide education for over 2500 adolescent girls and more than 9000 women in the year 2003.[7]

See also

References

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