Building Solidarity to End Gender-Based Violence in Rajasthan

CREA is leading a three-year initiative in Rajasthan to strengthen feminist leadership, build grassroots capacities, and advance collective action to address gender-based violence (GBV). Building on more than two decades of work with women-led organizations and young feminist leaders across India, this initiative brings together grassroots organizations, adolescent girls, young women, community leaders, and local institutions to create long-term, sustainable change.

Rajasthan continues to face significant challenges related to gender inequality. Women and girls experience barriers to education, mobility, bodily autonomy, and access to justice. Child marriage, gender-based violence, restrictive social norms, and unequal power structures shape everyday realities across many communities. While organizations and movements are working to address these issues, there remains a need for stronger collaboration, sustained capacity-building, and collective feminist action.

Building a Feminist Ecosystem

Lasting social transformation requires investment at multiple levels — individual, community, institutional, and societal. This initiative strengthens the leadership and capacities of women-led community-based organizations while creating opportunities for young women and girls to emerge as changemakers.

Working with grassroots organizations across Rajasthan, the initiative deepens understanding of gender, rights, bodily autonomy, intersectionality, and GBV. Through training, mentorship, peer learning, and collaborative action, organizations are strengthening their programming, advocacy, and leadership. By fostering connections across organizations and community leaders, the initiative is building a network capable of influencing local systems, challenging harmful social norms, and advancing gender justice.

Strengthening Grassroots Leadership: Ibtida

Ibtida — meaning "a beginning" in Urdu — is CREA's flagship grassroots leadership and network-building programme. Since 2002, it has supported women-led organizations across the Hindi-speaking regions of India to build feminist leadership, collective learning, and solidarity.

In Rajasthan, Ibtida brings together women-led organizations working on gender equality, rights, and social justice. Participating organizations are engaging in intensive learning focused on feminist leadership, GBV prevention, advocacy, rights-based approaches, and movement building. The programme creates spaces for organizations to learn from one another, share experiences, and collectively develop strategies to address the challenges facing women and girls in their communities.

Young Feminist Leaders: SELF Academy

CREA's SELF — Sports, Expression, Leadership, and Freedom — is a residential leadership programme for adolescent girls and young women nominated by partner organizations.

SELF Academy provides a transformative space where participants explore feminist leadership, self-expression, communication, rights awareness, confidence-building, and creative activism. Through art, technology, storytelling, and collective learning, participants build the skills to understand and challenge gender inequality and take on leadership roles in their communities.

Each year, young women from across Rajasthan participate in the Academy and return equipped to mentor peers, engage local institutions, and lead initiatives that promote gender equality and challenge GBV.

Supporting Organizations through Sub-granting, Mentorship and Capacity Building

Grassroots organizations are central to advancing social change. CREA is providing ongoing mentorship and institutional strengthening support — working alongside organizations as a collaborator and learning partner, not only as a funder or trainer.

Organizations are receiving support to:

• Strengthen organizational systems and leadership
• Develop rights-based project proposals
• Improve fundraising and donor engagement
• Access CREA's knowledge resources and training
• Build technical and financial management skills
• Participate in peer-learning and collaborative networks

Selected organizations also have access to financial resources to strengthen and expand their work on gender justice and GBV prevention.

Consortium to address GBV in Rajasthan

CREA convened a consortium of organizations working in Rajasthan to build solidarity and a vibrant ecosystem of actors addressing GBV. CREA serves as Secretariat, with consortium members The Population Foundation of India (PFI), The YP Foundation, and Purpose. CREA manages financial transactions and disbursements with consortium partners, and organizes bi-annual meetings with consortium partners to share updates and resolve issues.

Creating Change at Multiple Levels 

This initiative is contributing to change across multiple dimensions: strengthening the confidence, leadership, and agency of women and girls; building the capacity of grassroots organizations; deepening engagement with local governance structures; and challenging harmful social norms through campaigns, storytelling, and community action.

Over time, CREA is working toward a stronger feminist ecosystem in Rajasthan — one that is inclusive, intersectional, collaborative, and rooted in local communities.