Vanangana, a rural community based women's' right collective, located in Bundelkhand, Uttar Pradesh, has been operating from Chitrakoot since 1993 and Banda since 2003. It is registered under the Societies Act.

Vanangana iscombating the grave and pervasive problem of violence against women by making Dalit women an important part of village development and thus ensuring their safety as well as an influential position in the social ladder.

By creating platforms that allow women to come together, Vanangana enables them to identify common problems, confront them through collective action, and demonstrate the impact to the entire community. In all efforts to access justice, organization allows leadership to emerge from within the communities. Working strictly within the socioeconomic framework, Vanangana is uncompromising about the judicial system, and promotes a multilayered application of the law, which cuts across social hierarchies.

Objectives

• Vanangana strives to work with women whose rights have been abused and helps them take independent and informed decisions. Its primary objective is to challenge social norms which suppress women on the basis of gender, class and caste.

• Vanangana through its programs has tried to impart skill based training and inculcate leadership qualities among women belonging to the marginalized section of  Adivasi, Dalit and Muslim community.

• The organisation has also tried to ensure an equal and undifferentiated access to natural resources among all members of society-a.right which often denied to the Dalits.