For women like me, what is #MeToo? Poverty and stigma mean we can never speak out. There is no place safe for women like us.

 

- A domestic worker affiliated with the Martha Farrell Foundation quoted by Human Rights Watch

The Programme

Rooted in a long-term community-led intervention, MFF’s #Main Bhi programme with women domestic workers integrates both social and economic empowerment. Rather than addressing violence only through awareness campaigns, the programme builds women’s agency, collective power and livelihood resilience simultaneously.

Currently being implemented across 15 urban communities in Delhi and in the districts of Gurugram and Panipat in Haryana, the programme reaches out to women domestic workers living and working in as migrants in highly-vulnerable urban settlements.

At the core of this work is the Pehalkar model, a community-led leadership framework developed through sustained engagement with women in urban and peri-urban settlements. Pehelkars are women from the community who initiate change from within. They are like the first anchors of change and their legitimacy comes not from external authority but from lived experience, trust, and collective action.

MFF’s approach encourages community-led leadership, economic empowerment, and collective action to strengthen women domestic workers’ voice, agency, and resilience. Through peer networks, entrepreneurship, digital-financial literacy, and community engagement, they gain confidence, and collective strength and power to assert their rights, not just challenge but also act by reporting against violence, improve livelihoods, and drive lasting social change.