Networking with local and national women’s and 
human rights groups

(i) Mahila Okkoota

With more than sixty women’s, human rights and development groups in the city of Bangalore, we have been part of founding the Mahila Okkoota in the eighties - a federation of autonomous women’s groups that takes up issues for joint public campaigns particularly for International Women’s Day every year in March. Some of the issues we have focused on through rallies, public meetings, theatre and song include war and peace, communal harmony, violence against women, elections and women’s role in politics, globalisation, etc. Mahila Okkoota has helped in creating considerable public awareness of the presence of a vibrant women’s movement in the city and the issues that the women have been concerned with through the year. 

ii) Autonomous Women’s Groups 

We have also, since the seventies been part of the National level Autonomous Women’s Movement that till recently used to organise a national level women’s conference every two years. Vimochana as one of the oldest women’s group in the country and as a founder member of the AWM has played a central role in organising many of these conferences. This has included participating in the planning meetings, taking responsibility for hosting some of these meetings and for the workshops during the conference and for raising of resources. 

Apart from these defined networks that we have been central to, we have also networked on a number of public actions when ever the occasion arose as for instance after the genocide against the Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 and after the USA declared the international war against terror following September 11 and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. We have also lent support to and participated in the processes of the World Social Forum especially when it was organised in Mumbai, India in January 2004.

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