NISHTHA means Dedication in Bengali; dedicated towards empowering women to fight for equal rights, equal opportunities and equal dignity.
Initiated in the year 1975 by Mrs. Pritilata Das, together with about 5 to 10 women, over the years Nishtha has come to be known as an organization for the women, by the women! Today Nishtha is what it is because of the tireless struggle and efforts of its 580 odd women volunteers, 420 odd girl volunteers who have been volunteering to keep the work going on in the grassroots without bothering about incentives or remunerations. Along with the volunteers are about 8920 women, 8152 girls and 2000 men who are the reason behind our organization and 52 odd team members working continuously and selflessly indirectly benefitting about 2 Lakh individuals, enabling our vision to build discrimination free just world a reality.
We salute each and every woman who have been our inspiration, motivation and giving us a reason to work towards our goal of empowering Girls and Women with a view to making them competent enough to avail of equal opportunities and rights as they can thrive for leading a violence free dignified life.
At Nishtha, we believe that Patriarchy is the root cause of all major societal problems that are affecting the lives of girls and women. The unequal sex ratio in our state and our country, similar to most South Asia countries shows us that major social problems like early child marriage, girls dropping out of education, trafficking of women girls, domestic violence resulting in one out of every two women facing domestic violence which has led to over 50 million missing women in South Asia.
Exploring the different forms of rights violation, at Nishthawe found that working to keep girls in school and getting them educated would be one of the key areas of the work of the organization.
Presently Nishtha is known as a woman's rights organization. Beginning right from childhood girls reached by Nishtha in about 225 villages of 24 Parganas South District of West Bengal, is empowered to be educated and explore and express their rights. And the work continues right up to when they are grannies and Nishtha believes that at any stage of their lives women have a lot to contribute towards a better society and better tomorrow. Nishtha is also striving to work with boys and men because women's rights are after all not about women but about human rights. Together men and women, boys and girls will have to work towards an equal and just society.
