Mr Naushad Hasan Ansari, Programme Manager, WEALTH project, receiving the letter of appreciation from Smt Rachna Singh, Hon’ble Secretary of DLSA, Barabanki

BARABANKI (UTTAR PRADESH): The Leprosy Mission Trust India’s WEALTH (Women Empowerment through Advocacy, Livelihood Training and Health) project, based in Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh is doing a commendable job in empowering women from rural communities in Uttar Pradesh.

The project, which works in 150 villages of Fatehpur and Ramnagar blocks of Barabanki district, partners with District Legal Services Authority (DLSA), since September 2017 to help the marginalised women in these villages access free and competent legal help.

In the training programmes arranged by the project in these villages, lawyers from DLSA act as resource persons and provide legal literacy, raise awareness about women’s rights, promote gender equality, access rights and entitlements, etc. As of now, over 10,000 people (70% of them are women) from 60 villages of these blocks have been trained.

These trained women play a crucial role in the development of their villages. They achieve this by doing community advocacy, accessing social welfare schemes, conducting adult literacy classes, starting various income-generating activities through self-help groups, to name a few, with the active support of the project.

Recently, DLSA, Barabanki, acknowledged the exemplary work of the project.

Smt Rachna Singh, Hon’ble Secretary of DLSA, Barabanki and Judicial Magistrate of Barabanki Civil Court honoured the project through a letter of appreciation. The letter, among other things, says, “We would like to acknowledge that the association with The Leprosy Mission Trust India’s WEALTH Project, Barabanki has been important for District Legal Services Authority, Barabanki, for bringing gender equality in the villages of the district Barabanki. The awareness initiatives taken by your project to bring gender equality in the villages are very important and certainly progressive changes are visible”.

“We appreciate your efforts for creating awareness and sensitising communities’ gender equality at the village level. It will build knowledge and empower marginalised women to come forward to claim their rights and entitlements. Similarly, the perceptions of men toward women are certainly improving positively. In addition, your project’s work on creating awareness on leprosy is highly admirable and will certainly bring healing, inclusion and dignity for people affected by leprosy.”

Congratulations, Naushad Hasan Ansari and WEALTH project team!

We are thankful to Smt Rachna Singh, Hon’ble secretary of DLSA, Barabanki and her team for supporting us in bringing gender equality among rural communities.

About National Legal Services Authority: National Legal Services Authority of India (NALSA) was formed on 5 December 1995 under the authority of the Legal Services Authorities Act 1987. Its purpose is to provide free legal services to disadvantaged sections of society and to organise Lok Adalats for speedy resolution of cases. The Chief Justice of India is patron-in-chief of NALSA while second seniormost judge of Supreme Court of India is the Executive-Chairman. There is a provision for similar mechanism at state and district levels (headed by Chief Justice of High Courts and Chief Judges of District courts, respectively).