Jagori: Awakening Women

Established in the year 1984 in Delhi as an unregistered society, with a vision of “spreading feminist consciousness for the creation of a just society”, Jagori has been working unremittingly on its mission for over 25 years now. At the time of its genesis, Jagori described itself as “Women’s Resource and Training Centre”. For its founders, a group of seven people – Abha, Gouri, Jogi, Kamla, Manjari, Runu and Sheba – Jagori was their response to a need within women’s movement. They decided to form what they envisioned as a ‘creative space’ for women to express their realities, “to articulate their experience of oppression, to know more about it and to find ways of fighting it.”

Over the years, Jagori became a part of various defining campaigns and struggles. Among the issues raised by Jagori in the women’s movement have been those of single women, sexuality, mental health of women, safe travel for women in the railways, and consistent advocacy on violence against women. Jagori has also played a significant role as a member of the National Coordination Committee for conceptualization and coordination of the biannual National Conference of Women’s Movement in India. Jagori has also regularly engaged with the Indian Association of Women’s Studies (IAWS) and housed the Secretariat in 1995.

Over the years, Jagori’s objectives have been reshaped into consciousness raising and awareness building on violence, health, education, development and other issues critical for women’s individual and collective empowerment, production and distribution of creative material on feminist issues, dissemination of information and knowledge on feminist concern to meet the needs of women’s groups, NGO’s and development organizations and advocacy on women’s rights and gender equality.

At Jagori’s Resource Centre, one would find a library with a comprehensive collection of resources on various women’s issues. As a part of regular services, Jagori carries out information search and retrieval for both internal and external users. Specialized services like preparation of reading lists, information packages, topic-based bibliographies, are provided on request. Jagori also provides consultation services to smaller centers or NGOs for setting up libraries or information centers or similar assistance. Jagori also has a distribution and sale outlet for its publications and publications from women’s groups and feminist publishing houses from all over the country.

Among the most recent campaigns started by Jagori is the SafeDelhi campaign started to fight the problem of sexual harassment in Delhi.

To find out more about JAGORI, log onto www.jagori.org