About Shakti Shalini
Shakti Shalini is a non-governmental organization based in Delhi, India, that is committed to gender equality. It provides support services to survivors of gender/ sexual violence across India which include counseling, crisis intervention, a shelter home, legal aid, health aid, rehabilitation and/ or reintegration, and follow-up. It works across five socio-economically marginalised communities in Delhi to prevent gender/ sexual violence and discrimination by carrying out daily outreach, gender/legal awareness, health-aid, skills/ vocational trainings, theatre and arts interventions, and mobilisation of gender equality community leaders.
Further, Shakti Shalini engages youth from high schools, universities, and professional spaces in training programs so that they may become champions of a gender equal future, and conducts regular media and digital awareness and sensitisation on issues of gender, sexuality, and violence. To actualise our vision, we work in solidarity with local, national, and global networks and alliances dedicated to mitigating systemic patriarchy and creating a gender equal world.
Our Founding Story
Our Founders
“I am not afraid of anyone. To be able to do anything, you must have courage. Balancing your enthusiasm and consciousness helps you get the work done and that is how I have always worked.”
– Shahjahan Begum
“Feminism means that you fight for yourself, that you become strong and you don’t discriminate between your sons and daughters… I lost my daughter years ago but I saved thousands and thousands of others.”
– Satyarani Chadha
In the 1980s, Satyarani Chadha and Shahjahan Begum, two women found their daughters subjected to death by burning by their respective in-laws on the pretext of insufficient dowry. The violent loss of their daughters galvanized them to tell their story to everyone: to the media, the courtroom, and the public. They committed to joining hands and dedicating their lives to fighting gender/ sexual violence, especially domestic and dowry violence. In 1987 they established Shakti Shalini and it became a pioneer of grassroots gender equality work in India.
In 1975, the United Nation’s General Assembly adopted 1975-1985 as the decade for women. The global context of a feminist wave across the 1970s and 80s channelized international support and commendation toward the organisation. This was the context in which Shakti Shalini was born.
Through its early years. Shakti Shalini played a pioneering role in campaigning for the Anti-Dowry and Domestic Violence laws currently prevailing on the land, and it established the first shelter home for women in distress in Delhi. Through its journey full of challenges and breakthroughs alike, Shakti Shalini has striven to support countless individuals in navigating violence and discrimination toward a life of safety, freedom, and dignity.
It is with these intentions and principles in mind that each of the Shakti Shalini's interventions are designed, and they come together in unison to actualize a world with is zero tolerance to violence and an uncompromising gender equality.