Jeevika Trust - working for rural India's women

At Jeevika Trust, we believe that empowering women is the key to tackling India’s devastating rural poverty - despite soaring economic growth, 270 million people in India’s villages live below the poverty line, and it is undoubtedly women that suffer the most. Working with six carefully-selected Indian NGO partners, we support some of rural India’s most disadvantaged women – those from low-caste and tribal communities – to help them build and sustain viable village livelihoods which help their families and communities too.

Our approach to village livelihoods is three-fold; we work to improve access to clean water & better sanitation, to improve health & nutrition and to empower and provide income generation opportunities for women. By improving access to clean water, we stop women having to walk for hours each day to collect water for their families. By improving sanitation – helping communities to build toilets near their homes as well as gender-segregated toilet blocks in schools – we reduce the risk of diarrhoeal diseases, help girls to stay in school and stop women from having to defecate in the open, where – particularly at night – they are vulnerable to violence and sexual assault. By educating women and adolescent girls about sanitary and reproductive health, as well as improving access to sanitary napkins, we not only help to reduce the number of reproductive or urinary tract infections, but also help women to stay in work and girls to stay in school so that they can realise their full potential. By empowering women and providing them with income generation opportunities – from producing and marketing honey or sanitary napkins to growing and selling produce – we not only help women to increase their household income, but also to grow in self-confidence and to gain greater respect within their communities.

When women win, we all win. Find out more by visiting our website.