MASUM - Objectives

This is my second post on MASUM and I wanted to write about the objective and intiatives of MASUM in details.

Intervention against Family Violence

Any act of violence against a woman, whether at home or outside, is never an isolated incident. It is a weapon that is used by the powerful against those who are powerless. Immediate support is provided to women in distress by our para-legal workers called Saathis, at community level using strategies like counselling, imparting knowledge of the law to women, motivating women to form support groups and pressure groups at village level as well as by influencing decision-makers in the village to act on behalf of the distressed women.

The counselling center Samvaad (dialogue) located at Saswad reaches out to women who are victims of violence, abuse and exploitation. Emotional support and legal aid services are provided by trained social workers and a visiting lawyer from Pune.

MASUM has also worked with other organisations at the policy making level to help draft and enforce the law against domestic violence.

Health Programme - Our health workers at the village based women's health centers use self-help techniques to enable women to understand their own bodies and to participate in the process of diagnoses and treatment. An essential part of the health program is also to provide literacy to the rural women about their own bodies. The health workers at the centers conduct whole-body, speculum and bimanual examinations as well as breast examinations for detection of reproductive tract infections and other gynaecological problems at village level. Pap-smears are collected for prevention or early detection of cervical cancer.

The health workers treat women with traditional herbal medicines available in the neighbourhood, allopathic drugs under generic names, accu-pressure techniques, dietary alternatives and exercises.

MASUM's health program is not an alternative to the Government health program. Every person has the right to receive primary health care and it's the State's obligation to fulfill this right. Making people aware of this right is a part of MASUM's programs.

Training and capacity building - MASUM has started several capacity building initiatives with the objective of empowering women and other marginalized groups with useful skills and elevating their confidence.

Tailoring classes : Economic independence, self-reliance and confidence in oneself is a proven means of women's empowerment. MASUM conducts tailoring classes in various villages to teach young girls a useful skill. In addition to tailoring, the girls also learn physical exercises, self-defense techniques, health information, women's issues, rights of women and related laws etc.

Mobile Computer Van : This project, which started in May 2008, was envisaged with the objective of bridging the technological gap between urban and rural areas. A mobile van with 10 computer systems visits four villages in the Purandar Block to impart computer training to adolescent girls especially those from marginalized groups. We also aim to extend the services to school students in the form of computer aided education and to farmers to help them build a communication link with agricultural training institutes.

Human Rights Training Programmes : Over the past 20 years MASUM has developed as a credible training resource in areas of women's health care, gender sensitization and mainstreaming of gender issues, violence against women, human rights, reproductive and sexual rights, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR).
MASUM has functioned as the training unit for the Maharashtra Women and Health Programme (MAH - WAH). MASUM in partnership with IWRAW – Asia Pacific has conducted intensive training programmes for NGOs in Maharashtra as well as from other states of India on the CEDAW. MASUM is part of a group – Beyond the Circle which comprises of individuals, representatives of NGOs and academic institutions committed to advancing ESC rights in the Indian Context. MASUM's Institute of Training in Rights-based Activism (MITRA) was started in October 2003 as a program to build capacities of NGOs in Maharashtra working on diverse issues (women's issues, children's issues, health, HIV-AIDS, micro-credit, rural development) in urban, rural as well as tribal areas, by training participants from within these organisations in the rights based perspective and framework. This initiative was further extended to train activists from NGOs at the National level.

In addition to the above resource persons from MASUM have been regularly training other NGOs as well as government organisations on gender issues, women's health, micro-credit etc., Capacity building of rural NGOs on above issues is an ongoing activity of MASUM.

Publications : MASUM has produced and published several flip books, training manuals, booklets, reports and books on issues related to health, domestic violence and human rights to empower grass-roots level development workers with skills and knowledge required to bring about a noticable change in the field.

Micro-credit Programme – Streedhan Vikas Prakalp (women’s resource development program) Women’s self-help savings groups have been working since 1991 in 8 villages of Parner Block and 18 villages of Purandhar to enable poor women to build their resources. About 5000 women members save a small amount every month and access easy and low interest loans without any collateral in their time of need.

Children's Programmes - The current heirarchical framework in which our society operates today is a result of years of socialization. To break this mould that disempowers women, dalits and other marginalised communities, MASUM works with groups of children in order to create an environment conducive to the development of harmonious relationships based on gender-equality, non-violence, religious and cross-cultural tolerance and values of democracy. We work with groups of children divided into two age gropus. The Raan Pakhre (free wild birds) group is for children from 6years to 14 and Bharari (taking flight) group works with adolescents. This is also a space where children can come and discuss issues close to their hearts, share ideas, opinions as well as their problems. These children are encouraged to raise certain issues to the village level with the support of MASUM activists.

MASUM activists visit several schools to impart the same values to school students as well.

Our pre-school teachers conduct Balwadis (pre-school education) in the interior and highly neglected tribal areas in Parner Block in order to facilitate enrollement of children from these marginalized communities into mainstream schools.

Democracy Festival - MASUM stands for women's rights, democracy, equality, secularism and diversity. MASUM opposes fundamentalism. Every year Lokshahi Utsav, an idea that evolved in MASUM, is observed in Pune in which over 25 civil society organizations along with the citizens of Pune come together to celebrate the spirit of democracy. The celebrations are held from 26th Jan to 30th Jan during which several concerts, lectures, discussions etc. are organised.

Campaigns
MASUM is engaged in several campaigns and initiatives at the local, State and National level to promote basic human rights and the values that the organisation upholds.