Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan (KMVS)

Since its inception, KMVS has evolved through these two decades, in various phases. The initiation phase incubated a gendered understanding of local issues and through that focused on forming rural women’s collectives. These collectives in different blocks were subsequently scaled up and strengthened to replicate their learnings amongst different communities. By the second phase, the sangathans went beyond their identities as women alone and lent their leadership to initiate transformative action in the areas of ecological regeneration, access to livelihoods, reproductive health, violence against women, and local governance of gram panchayats. By the third phase of KMVS, the collectives went on to get registered as independent organisations functioning in their regions as credible civil society change makers. While KMVS continued to enhance the capacities of the newly formed registered organisations, KMVS also initiated resource support units, and through them incubated new collectives. KMVS has thus grown from a single collection of rural women to a network of 7 grass-roots women’s organisations, operational across Kutch district, and comprising more than 20,000 women leaders/managers/livelihood practitioners. Women pastoralists, farmers, artisans, fishers, wage-workers, musicians, women elected representatives, traditional birth attendants, and single self-employed women, have all come together at various levels as organised collectives and facilitated a range of impacts in the larger environment. Thus, the organisation has continuously undergone change even as it has attempted to transform the gender parameters in the district and influence it outside the district. However, the fast-changing socio-economic scenario after the earthquake has triggered both growing challenges and developmental opportunities in the micro and macro context.