An Overview

India's Population: 1.07 billion

Sex Ratio of Population: 930 women per 1000 men
Literacy rate : 65.38 % Males : 75.96 % Females : 54.28 %
Maternal Mortality rate: 540 deaths per 1,00,000 live births
Total Fertility Rate : 2.9 births per woman
If unwanted births can be eliminated, TFR would drop to approx. 2.1 children
52% of married women take decisions about their own health care
29% minor girls are pushed into wedlock
52% of Indian women are anaemic
No. of people in India living with HIV : Over 4 million (2002)
 Men Against Violence and Abuse (MAVA)
Addressing the root cause of violence and abuse of women in India:
Traditional, male-dominated attitudes
A registered charitable trust working in Mumbai since 1993
India's only organization of men working against violence and abuse of women
MAVA has 4 men as core members, besides having women members
Currently operated with min. fin. support from individual donors, well-wishers
Needs financial help of US dollars per annum
Project Duration and Implementation Phase:
Initially began with a focus on domestic violence and abuse of women
Activities limited to counselling and guidance to men and women on tackling
marital conflicts and creating mass awareness on the issue, using varied media
Initiated pilot project with school & college students sensitizing them
Addressing issues of sexuality education, sexual harassment at the workplace,
child sexual abuse, misuse of sex-determination tests to abort female foetuses
 MAVA addressing gender-based violence

Reaching out to young men and women in the age-group of 25-45

facing marital & other gender problems
For the last 10 years, more than 2000 needy men and women
provided
free face-to-face and telephonic counseling and guidance

At a preventive level, youths in schools and colleges in

age group
of 14 - 21 addressed through sessions on gender-sensitization

Pre-marital guidance workshops organized for men & women

Expertise:
Trained and experienced counselors
Professionally qualified social worker
Self-motivated and committed team of activists
 Approach undertaken to achieve goals and objectives

• For counseling and guidance, it has been individual-based approach

• For reaching out to youths, it has been school-based and college-based
• For creating mass awareness, esp. to address male-dominated attitudes,
invitations sent to groups of concerned men and women, activists and
general members of the public
 Activities undertaken to achieve goals and objectives
Advocacy :
Through symposia & workshops on contemporary gender issues
Occasions like 8th March-International Women's Day being used
Addressing specific issues like acid attack on young girls, jilted love
Networking with women's groups, promoting participation of men
Education :
On-going gender-sensitisation programmes for different target groups
Usage of innovative media like street-plays , wall-newspapers, posters, radio-
plays, talks, competitions for youth, group sessions, poetry-reading sessions
Pre-marital guidance workshops for young boys and girls
Purush Spandana, an annual magazine since 1996
Service Provision:
Counseling and guidance sessions on resolving marital conflict
 Outcomes, project achievements and monitoring tools
Service Statistics:
No. of men and women received counseling and guidance : approx. 2000
Of these, 55% were men. 20% referred by women's groups and other bodies,
70% of the cases were of marital conflict. Others of sexual harassment at the
workplace, child abuse, HIV/AIDS
No. of Symposia and panel discussions for lay public : 25
Topics covered : Domestic Violence, Legislation on Domestic Violence,
Today's Youth and Sexuality, Men's Issues vis-à-vis Women's movement
Symposia attended by packed audience of men & women
Gender Sensitisation Talks to different groups
Type of training material used for target groups:
Special communication module for school students
Wall-newspaper campaign for 4 college students
Essay, poster and elocution Competitions
Street Plays on Domestic Violence
Purush Spandana, magazine brought out in regional language, copies : 1000
 Stakeholders involved in making the project successful
Trustees
All the four trustees putting in their time, skills, expertise & finance
Donors
Some donors-individuals and corporate consistently supporting by way of
advertisement support or sponsoring an event

Cultural Artists
Cultural artists across the city have been lending support
Teachers
Providing support during sessions with school & college youth
Women's groups
Support in terms of training inputs, referrals, collaborating on a specific project
Media
Talk shows, discussions on popular TV. channels, coverage by newspapers.
 Obstacles and Strategies used to overcome them
Skepticism by women's groups initially
--- Built a constant rapport sharing the notable developments at the organization

Systematic reinforcement and perpetuation of traditional, male-dominated

attitudes by most of the subsystems of society : education, law, judiciary, media
--- Working at curative & preventive levels with varied target groups
 Opportunities that the project built on

Parents wanting their children Sexuality Education and Pre-marital guidance

Interest of study groups on Masculinity and Violence
For eg. Tathapi group in Pune, Brain -storming session by UNIFEM
Contemporary events like acid throwing on a 19- year old girl , cases of jilted
love, debate on misuse of law by women to harass innocent men , rape of a
minor in a local train
 Lessons learned

Processes involved in reaching out to needy men & women can be shared

Focussed efforts on working with men needed

Studies on masculinities and their constructs need to be done systematically

Studies on contributions of men need to be documented and shared