As part of building community response for survivors of domestic violence and strengthening women’s groups, North East Network has been conducting community meetings with local stakeholders and outreach programmes in the West Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya. These programmes have encouraged Seng Kynthei (Community Women’s Group) from a number of villages to further strengthen their perspective especially in their response to women’s rights and violence against women.
In this regard, the Seng Kynthei of Umjei village initiated a capacity building programme for its members and requested us to provide the training.
As part of NEN’s consistent follow up work in strengthening women’s groups, we conducted an interactive workshop on women’s rights & entitlements for the members of the Seng Kynthei Shnong, Umjei.
The initiative aimed to build and strengthen community institutions to advocate for rural women’s rights and entitlements in governance structures. The workshop provided a space for the members to introspect on their role in working for the welfare of their village. Through the participatory games and discussions, the participants realized that they have little knowledge about various social security schemes and government programmes for rural development and that they have no access or position to raise their concerns.
Therefore, the leaders of the women’s groups along with Laitlin Lyngkhoi, our Outreach Worker, have decided to visit district government offices for better understanding of various social security schemes. They have resolved to monitor the implementation of several schemes in their village and to raise their concerns at different platforms in future.
