The Centre for Law, Justice, and Development, NLU Delhi under the aegis of Department of Justice carried out field expeditions in Western and Eastern UP to sensitize people on gender, enhance their ability to understand the concept of gender based violence and to develop an understanding of the legal remedies and state mechanisms available for women survivors of violence. Our method was to use the capacity building approach that subscribes to a critical pedagogy and calls for a re‐constitution of self by challenging prevailing stereotypes and hierarchies by developing the habit of inquiry and critical curiosity about society, power, inequality, and social change. We used storytelling devices and popular references as tools to develop deep understanding of gender based violence and spread awareness about existing legal norms and institutional support structures like helplines, One Stop Centres, Family Counselling Centres, Swadhar Grehs, Women Police Stations.
We visited the villages Sarai Chabila and Kajraut in the districts of Bulandshahr and Aligarh respectively. In Sarai Chabila we carried out conversations with the women self help groups and in Kajraut we had sessions with the self help group and additionally carried out a door to door campaign.
In Eastern UP we visited the villages of Beerapatti and Manauri in the districts of Varanasi and Prayagraj respectively. In both these places we saw an active participation from the women who shared their own struggles of dealing with and surviving Domestic Violence.”