Social Action for Knowledge Building & Awareness Raising (SAKAR) is an India-based organization with a mission to strengthen leadership and economic empowerment of women and girls. SAKAR implements interventions that combine education, health, sports, digital inclusion, and community mobilization. SAKAR’s reach spans 190 villages and has impacted hundreds of girls to enroll and stay engaged in school.
In India’s state of Uttar Pradesh, adolescent girls are impacted by the intersection of poverty, patriarchy, and systemic exclusion. Their lives are too often shaped by early marriage, school dropout, nutritional deficits, menstrual taboos, digital exclusion, psychosocial stress, and gender-based violence. These interconnected challenges reinforce one another and create a cycle that limits girls’ agency, opportunities, and futures. Climate change exacerbates each of these problems and makes empowerment more urgent than ever.
With support from the Girls Opportunity Alliance Fund, SAKAR will implement its “Girls Lead Bareilly” initiative. The two-year program will empower adolescent girls through integrated workshops and training around life skills, digital literacy, gender justice, health awareness, psychosocial resilience, and environmental leadership. To ensure long-term sustainability, SAKAR hopes to repeat the training with new cohorts, deepen leadership roles, and strengthen alumni networks. Furthermore, partnerships with parents, teachers, and government stakeholders will strengthen the environment in which girls learn.
Through this project, SAKAR expects to directly support 350 adolescent girls and indirectly expects to reach 3.600 community members. With its holistic model, SAKAR hopes to catalyze transformative change among adolescent girls and strengthen the community environment to support girls’ education and empowerment.
To learn more about SAKAR, visit the organization’s website and social media pages:
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