By Simran K, Gender Lead; Shruti Venkatean, Associate Director, Saamuhika Shakti

‘Gender Equity’ is one of the core principles of Saamuhika Shakti. The initiative, since its inception, has aspired to ensure that women, girls and other marginalised groups, have equitable access to all program outcomes. While the initiative aimed to ensure gender integration and mainstreaming as a key consideration from the outset, the collective lacked a shared understanding of ‘gender equity’, and not all of the individual partner programs were designed using this as a foundational lens.

Pivoting from a siloed approach to gender equity, to seamless integration, and moving the needle from ensuring ‘representation’ to enabling ‘participation and ownership’, required the collective and its partners to undertake a deliberate journey over the years. This ongoing journey has helped us as the backbone to identify five key elements that have played acritical role in building a conscious lens towards gender equity in the program and amongst partners, enabling equitable impact at the last mile.

In this knowledge piece, we have documented these five elements; each of the elements have been supported with examples of diverse efforts undertaken by the different partners in the collective and the challenges as well as learnings that have emerged in the process.

1. Leveraging data to inform design and decision making

As the collective embarked on its journey to decode gender equity, the partners quite early on identified the need to leverage data as a tool to understand and cater to grassroots realities. This process of collecting and leveraging gender disaggregated data (data that is categorised based on gender groups such as female, male other gender identities) began with commissioning an in-depth gender analysis study.

The study undertaken by Dialectics Pvt. Ltd. brought key issues to the forefront such as, despite women being key economic contributors in waste-picking communities, they continue to struggle as a result of normative gender roles, wage disparities and mobility challenges. Furthermore, women waste pickers are more vulnerable to violence due to power imbalances, social stigma and limited access to support systems. This study helped the implementation partners to strengthen last mile support and the backbone to deliver customised assistance to the partners.

Additionally, the study reiterated the need to collect gender disaggregated data across all interventions on an ongoing basis to understand and evaluate equitable access to resources, support services and opportunities. This data, on numerous occasions, has helped pinpoint inequities and deepen the collective’s understanding of underlying challenges. Examples include - Data collected by Sambhav Foundation as part of their work in the alternate livelihoods domain, revealed higher attrition in the assistant beauty training course as a result of limiting family support that was further stemming from restrictive societal beliefs and perceptions. This information enabled the team to build targeted strategies to get immediate family members invested in the program.

Another such example would be the gender assessment that is being jointly driven by Circular Apparel Innovation Factory (CAIF) and Hasiru Dala across 16 Dry Waste Collection Centers (DWCCs) - hyper local level dry waste collection centers in Bengaluru commissioned by the local municipal government) and one Textile Recovery Facility (TRF - aggregation facility collecting and processing postconsumer textile waste). This assessment aims to gauge gender based gaps from the lens of policies, practices, wages and enabling environment. Both CAIF and Hasiru Dala plan to leverage this data to drive replication of best practices and targeted capacity building for the DWCC and TRF workers.

While the collective has come a long way in terms of collection of gender disaggregated data to check for representation and equitable access to opportunities, further efforts need to be driven to capture qualitative data that showcases women’s journey towards equitable participation and ownership.

2.Creating safe spaces to foster dialogue

While data brings to light key inequities, it is safe spaces that are helping the partners to decode causes contributing to these inequities. These spaces allow individuals of all genders to come together, share their stories and reflect on their experiences without fear of judgment or retaliation. One instance of this was at the ‘Maa Beti Mela,’ organised by WaterAid India where mothers and daughters came together to discuss menstrual health through mutual support. The space was successful in bringing together two generations, having different experiences and exposure, to jointly explore and address challenges.

‍Kavitha, a mother and participant from Bhavani Nagar, shared her newfound awareness about menstrual health after attending the workshop. "We didn't know that May 28 is observed as Menstrual Hygiene Day. We did not know all these years that this was called so. Now we know. We have learnt much through this workshop, both my daughter and I."

Reflecting on the session, she added, "Earlier, we knew this (menstruation) was common to all girls, but today we learnt when and why it happens." Her daughter, Bhavya, echoed this sentiment, saying, "I did not know about menstrual cycles, and that I would get my period around the same time next month."

Summing up their experience, Kavitha said, "After coming here, we got to know."

‍ A few key learnings that have emerged in the process of orchestrating such safe spaces are as follows:

• Enabling safe spaces does not always require a structured approach. Depending on the purpose and local context, safe spaces can begin as avenues for informal dialogue on a 1:1 basis or in smaller groups where individuals feel comfortable expressing themselves. Over time, these conversations can evolve into more informed and intentional actions/interventions. For example, informal community gatherings transitioning into formalised community forums. This gradual process allows for trust to build naturally, fostering a deeper sense of solidarity and commitment towards each other and the program.
• While community resource persons (CRPs) who drive programs at the last mile, have a deep understanding of local contexts, they often lack the required complex capabilities to hold and drive such safe spaces. And hence, it is pivotal for organisations to invest in ongoing capacity building of their staff members. Two Saamuhika Shakti partners, Sparsha Trust and Hasiru Dala, are actively collaborating with technical experts to drive gender oriented capacity building spaces for their CRPs. While Sparsha Trust’s training focuses on building a shared understanding of gender and gender based biases amongst its CRPs, Hasiru Dala’s training in collaboration with Gamana Mahila Samuha focuses on enabling CRPs to adopt a proactive approach to identifying and responding to domestic violence cases in the community.  

3. Engaging Support Systems and Identifying Allies

While enabling safe spaces for women and girls, it is equally important to engage with their immediate family and the key decision-makers in their homes. Many of the challenges women face, whether itis related to mobility, education or access to resources, are deeply rooted in family dynamics, power relations and community perceptions. Thus, engaging men and other key decision makers in essential conversations help create a more holistic environment where gender equality is not just a priority for women but a shared responsibility. This can be achieved through simple yet effective pathways.

For example - Sambhav Foundation invites family members, especially fathers/husbands for the skill training certification ceremony, enabling them to recognize women’s achievements while balancing power relations. Another such example is that of Udhyam Learning Foundation. At the time of onboarding of women Vyaaparis (nano-entrepreneurs), Udhyam Learning Foundation subtly assesses the power dynamics between the Vyaapari and the key decision-makers in her household. In cases where key decision-makers come across as less supportive, Udhyam Learning Foundation drives an informal yet a conscious dialogue to include them in business related conversations and responsibilities.

Such a contextualised approach helps build trust and ensures that power equations within the house are managed keeping in mind the lived realities, with scope for women to gain support and autonomy as they progress through the learning process.

While building allies is essential in creating sustainable impact, the approach to identifying and building such allies has to be very well thought through and strategically driven. It is essential to engage with these individuals in a way that they see themselves as partners, and not as authority figures/saviours.  

4. Incorporating gender lens into organisational policies and/or culture

Embedding gender equity principles in organisational policies and culture enables seamless gender equity integration into programs. Hence, a few Saamuhika Shakti partners such as BBC Media Action, Social Alpha, Enviu and Hasiru Dala are adopting such an approach.

BBC Media Action has begun creating safe spaces for its staff members to build a shared understanding of gender, intersectionality and allyship, Social Alpha is working with the start-ups that are a part of ‘Techtonic: Innovations for a Circular Economy’ to decode inclusive worker welfare policies and practices, Enviu plans to build ongoing safe spaces for its venture builders to openly share and collectively address any gender based biases in the venture building ecosystem and Hasiru Dala is currently reviewing its policies from a gender inclusivity lens along with actively seeking feedback from employees. Such measures showcase a strong intent to integrate gender into organisational culture and policies.

However, this approach comes with its own share of challenges. It is a time-consuming process that requires leadership and HR buy-in to be successful. Building gender champions within the organisation and weaving this lens into organisational culture is a gradual process, one that requires sustained effort.

5. Using the gender continuum as a guiding framework to continuously advance gender equity

Since gender integration is an ongoing journey, it is essential to have a guiding framework that allows for ongoing reflection and mapping of progress. Saamuhika Shakti leverages CARE International’s ‘Gender Continuum’ scale, a self-evaluation tool that helps organisations assess the degree of gender integration in their programs.

This tool enables teams to track their progress, refine strategies and support gender-transformative approaches, ensuring that the work remains aligned with the overarching gender equity goals. While such guiding tools/scales are effective in terms of providing a directional compass for programs, they are subjective and hence, require significant contextualisation.

For example, in the context of Saamuhika Shakti, partners leveraged the Gender Continuum tool to set contextualised goals keeping in mind their capacity for gender integration and the resources that are readily available to them. This approach has allowed for flexibility while ensuring shared commitment towards gender transformative programs.

In conclusion, the journey towards gender equity is deeply personal for each organisation, shaped by available resources, community dynamics and specific organisational contexts. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to achieving gender equity. However, deploying the aforementioned elements of collection and analysis of gender disaggregated data, creating safe spaces to foster dialogue, building gender allies, integrating gender lens into organisational policies and culture and lastly, self-evaluating progress towards gender transformative programs, can enable a strong start in this ongoing journey.

As Saamuhika Shakti and its partners continue on this journey to create gender equitable impact, we look forward to sharing more of our learned experiences in upcoming knowledge pieces.

Also read:

• ‍In pursuit of equity: Saamuhika Shakti’s focus on gender inclusion‍
• Conversations from the field: Saamuhika Shakti’s focus on gender inclusion