Established in 2016, the Martha Farrell Foundation is committed to creating a gender-just society by eliminating sexual and gender-based violence.
We believe that all individuals, communities, and institutions have the will and ability to facilitate change and invest in self-empowerment and growth.
To this end, the Foundation’s programs integrate holistic, participatory approaches to foster safe, empowering spaces where every individual can learn and work safely without the fear of sexual and gender-based violence or discrimination. Our initiatives have been designed to work in harmony on three levels: individual, community, and policy, engaging diverse stakeholders to enable meaningful change.
All formal and informal learning and working spaces become safe and gender-just by promoting rights to learn and live with dignity
The Martha Farrell Foundation supports practical interventions which are designed to achieving a gender-just society free from violence through:
• Learning: Co-design learning programs to inform, make aware and empower adolescents and workers to their right to safety and gender-justice in learning and work spaces
• Implementation: Support institutions, employers and managers to understand and implement policies and practices recommended under laws like The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013 and The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012
• Scaling: Build capacity of facilitators and partners to implement context-specific learning programs for scaling up safe and gender-just learning and working spaces
• Advocating: Influence diverse stakeholders, including policymakers and law-enforcing agencies, to design and implement effective laws, policies and institutional practices for safe and gender-just spaces, through granular evidence using participatory research
Through its programs and strategic areas of intervention, the Foundation has an outreach that extends to 25+ states of India, and 10+ countries beyond Indian borders. The Foundation has capacitated nearly 4,000 adolescent leaders across the country, trained over 40,000 formal and informal workers on gender and sexual harassment in the workplace, and supported faculty and staff members of nine universities in the Commonwealth nations (apart from India) in creating strategies for safer, sexual harassment-free campus spaces. A founding member of the Delhi for Domestic Workers Network, a coalition of unions, organisations, and civil society enterprises to forward the rights and voices of domestic workers in the NCR region, the Foundation has an outreach of 40,000+ women domestic workers and informal workers in the state.
The Foundation takes forward the spirit and legacy of Dr. Martha Farrell, a renowned gender practitioner, and civil society leader.
