Kushalta Vikas Kendra (KVK) or the Skills Development Centre for Combating Violence is a project under Shakti Shalini’s Prevention of Gender/ Sexual Violence Program. The vision and mission of KVK is to effectively merge skills development and vocational training with feminist action.
At KVK, members of five socio-economically marginalised communities supported by Shakti Shalini as well as the residents of Shakti Shalini’s Shelter Home for women in distress (Pehchan Home) receive training in various vocational and educational skills. The five communities KVK serves are, specifically, Nehru Nagar Block 10, Nehru Nagar Block 7, Jal Vihar, Shriniwas Puri, and Aadiwasi Camp, located in South-East Delhi. The trainings KVK offers include certified courses in cutting and tailoring, beauty culture, basic computer, and basic literacy, and non-certified volunteer and collaboration run courses such as English, notebook making, handmade paper making, incense making, macrame-based art production, etc.
KVK strives to organise a network of activities and facilities that provide our participants with a nurturing environment through which they can develop into strong individuals who take complete charge of their lives. It plays a crucial role in healing and strengthening an individual, building self-confidence and independence. By combining feminist action with skills and educational training, KVK sets in in motion an ideological and cultural change against patriarchal conventions and practices. Thus, all classes held within KVK pay a special emphasis on gender equality. The trainers, interns and volunteers who conduct classes at KVK find creative and effective means of interweaving democratic values of equality, individual choice and zero tolerance for violence within their classes. All participants are facilitated to develop a critical consciousness that questions all norms and to further gender equality. KVK is essentially an ecosystem that has a holistic approach to building the ‘personhood’ of an individual.