A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T

A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T

We, at Best Practices Foundation, would like to first acknowledge

all the women and girls whose voices have given life to this

compendium and whose stories have inspired our thinking.

This year long study on the innovative practices of Mahila

Samakhya has been an absolute privilege and honor for us at

Best Practices Foundation. It will have shaped our thinking for

life in the areas of institution building, governance, literacy, and

gender justice from a grassroots women's perspective. BPF

would like to thank all the MS staff at every level for their insights,

patience, hospitality and detailed feedback on the drafts to the

authors. We would not have seen this publication through without

the constant backing from the National Project Office, particularly

Suparna Pachauri, Taranga Sriraman and Santosh Sharma. We

would also like to thank DFID for their support in the making of

this compendium.

We would like to acknowledge MS Karnataka, especially Kavita

D.L. for opening their doors to BPF for the extensive pilots that

paved the way for a rigorous study and a robust methodology.

We appreciate the commitment of the members of the National

Resource Group, in particular, Sister Sabeena for her close

observations on adult literacy, Vandana Mahajan for her insights

on MS' work on governance and the links to the rights based

approach. We need to especially acknowledge Kameshwari

Jandhyala and A. Padma for their rigorous line by line feedback

on the work of federations. Suchithra Vedanth's detailed

comments on the Nari Adalat added depth to the work. Gita

Gairola and Gita Rani Bhattacharya were always available to

provide minute details to our questions on the phone. Seema

Bhaskaran and the MS Kerala team have been extremely

accommodating in providing information on the Mahila Shikshan

Kendra in Kerala given our travel constraints. Nirjumoni Bhayali's

thinking and reflection provided the conceptual basis for the data

exhibition innovation. The team would like to thank Prashanthi,

Flora Lakra, Smita Gupta, Kumkum Tripathi, Lalita Pradeep and

Trupti Sheth for their cooperation with BPF and also their

patience. The interviews with boys, men and personnel from

government agencies and NGOs in the districts and states helped

us understand the linkages, the scope for future synergies and

provided us policy insights for institutionalization. A special

thanks to all the translators for the committed assistance to the

research team on the field and helping us understand the ground-

breaking work of women.

Finally, the work of the research team who worked tirelessly and

in strong collaboration to compile this compendium needs to be

acknowledged. Manab Sen, Nancy Yu and Tarun Kumar

Debnath have been always been ready to walk the extra mile with

us and have contributed immensely with their analysis and

perspectives for the studies on federations and Nari Adalat. We

are grateful to Ashok Sircar for his inputs on every single chapter.

We would like to acknowledge the contributions of Shalini Joshi

and Purwa Bhardwaj on the study on KGBVs which informed our

chapter on the work with adolescents. We would also like to

thank Meera Halakatti, Rony C.J., Subhadip Das and Anchita

Ghatak for their contributions to the study. Bonnie Shepherd,

Sujit Sinha and Anita Gurumurthy were instrumental in designing

the framework of the study and methodology. A note of thanks to

Natasha Ravindran for her meticulous copy-editing of all the

drafts. Sudha Menon must be thanked for working neck-to-neck

with the team and lending her artistic flair to the design of the

compendium and for her work on the Nari Adalat study. A final

vote of thanks to the authors; Malasree Dasgupta, Mukta

Banerjee, Preethi Krishnan, Akhilesh Kumar Bakshi, and Sanjeev

Pillay who have brought the voices of women into this

compendium.

Sangeetha PurushothamanDirector

Best Practices Foundation

DFID India, British High CommissionB-28 Tara Crescent, Qutab Institutional Area, New Delhi 110016Tel: +91-11-2652 9123 http://www.dfid.gov.uk/countries/asia/india.asp

*Disclaimer: The views presented in this paper/product are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of DFID.

National Project OfficeGovernment of IndiaMinistry of Human Resource Development

Department of Higher EducationShastri BhavanNew Delhi - 110 115

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Best Practices Foundation.1 Palmgrove Road,Victoria Layout,Bangalore - 560 047, KarnatakaTel: +91-80-25301861Website: www.bestpracticesfoundation.com

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