Vatva is located in Ahmedabad East and is a large industrial hub. As a result it has a huge migrant population that isincreased by 500% in the last decade. 70% women earn to support families, home based workers and laborer in small/medium industries. The industrial pollution has caused significant damage to the flora and fauna. The Sabarmati river flowing through the region and the water table are highly contaminated.

FFEC is partnering with Himmat, an NGO created by women survivors of 2002 Gujarat carnage to support their current projects on mental health and legal counselling for domestic violence survivors. More than 600 women have received legal counseling since it was started in 2008 and more than 400 cases have been filed in court.

 

Regular workshops on mental health are conducted, the latest being a camp in October 2020. A survey conducted revealed that mental health issues are quite prevalent in the community. Counselling and therapy is being offered. The number of women seeking this service has been growing.

Volunteer Aishwarya is also working on a Water Resource Management project proposal for the region with help from Himmat on building a relationship with the community living there. See the Resource Management page for more information on this project.

 

We are also planning to create a creative space for children of this community .The schools in this area have few facilities and as a result children do not get an opportunity to explore their creativity or learn science through practical experiments. This project requires funds for construction and will take a few years. A foundation for this space was built with a grant given by FFEC.

Highlights about the planned Creative Space for Children project:

• A community based creative space for children including a science and engineering lab, arts and crafts
• Provide a platform for adolescent youth to explore their technical creativity
• Design hub for linking technology for fulfilling local needs of community
• Include teaching practices of main stream curriculum of science as there is no such facilities in the local schools even those run by government
• Benefit 200 kids over 5 different schools
• Bring school children, school dropouts and outside communities (i.e. artist, designer, engineer, activist and social entrepreneur) on one platform through various projects which would benefit larger community
• Internship program for university students (engineering, art, media, architecture)