Prajnya is a Chennai-based non-profit that conducts research, engages in public education
and supports building networks of individuals and organisations for change
towards peace, justice and human security.
Our two main areas of work are gender equality related issues and peace education.
What's New
Rajaram Fellowship Paper
Preeti Karmarkar's research on the working of Local Committees in Maharashtra has just been published.
Access the paper here.The Disarmament Toolkit 2024
UNRCPD and Prajnya announce the third edition of their free online course on disarmament and arms control.
New Resource! Tamil Nadu Directory of Support Services
Based on a mapping done for the Surviving Violence project, we bring you a listing of essential Tamil Nadu government and non-governmental support services available for women who have experienced sexual and gender-based violence.
2022 Prajnya 16 Days Campaign against Gender Violence Report
The 2022 Campaign Report is online now. Check out what we did this year!
2022 Gender Violence in India report
The 2022 GVR is online now. It includes a new section on intersectionalities and gender violence.
In the Shadow of Conflict
An overview of support services available to survivors of gender-based violence in Kashmir, plus a Directory of Resources.
Politics, Security and Gender (PSG)
Women’s work and contributions in the public sphere, the gendered impact of policy and gender politics in general were the starting point of Prajnya’s work. There are two dimensions to our work in this area: creating gender violence awareness and highlighting issues related to women's public sphere participation. The Prajnya Archives, a user-generated, visual repository of images of women's public sphere presence and work, is an important element of the latter.
Gender Violence Research and Information Taskforce (GRIT)
Over fifteen years, creating awareness about gender-based violence has become the most visible part of Prajnya's work. The Prajnya 16 Days Campaign against Gender Violence is the highlight, the public face of this work as we organise both real and virtual events and activities to create awareness about prevalence, prevention, rights and support related to gender violence. More quietly, around the year, we conduct sensitisation and training programmes for a variety of audiences. We support and conduct research, as well as public education activities.
Education for Peace Initiative (EPI)
Peace is at the core of Prajnya's founding vision. Peace education is the path we chose, working with children and adults, through formal and informal means. Our early work was focused on schools but with the pandemic, we moved to online lecture series and courses that are open to all. The Peace Blog has been home to many of our outreach initiatives, including calls for poetry.
On Twitter
Capacity-building
Prajnya is mandated to work to build networks. Building capacity in the social sector is an important part of this, in our view. The 'Our City, Our Rights' (Namathu Nagaram Namathu Urimai) process is a civic rights education programme for communities, teaching about safety, water, sanitation and public transport as rights, as well as enabling simple documentation processes to support demands for entitlements. Our Thoduvaanamseries offers volunteers a platform to share their skills in short training sessions that are meant primarily for our colleagues in the social sector.