Prakriti Mahila Vikas Kendra, Chandrapur

Bharati works at the grassroots level with women on women’s empowerment and rural development. Her key strengths lie in organizing women and building their capacities to raise their voices for their rights. She has organized 150 self-help groups into a federation with a membership of approximately 1,800 women. One of the core areas of her work is women’s sexual and reproductive health rights. She advocates for community-based monitoring of services, especially on women’s and girls’ access to the public health system.

Bharati understands the importance of women’s knowledge of their legal rights to ensure that they can live free from violence, and she uses the law as an instrument to help women access justice.

Rise Up Cohort: India 2019