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Our Vision and Mission
Legal
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History and
Milestones
Our Staff
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As
a social development agency, Praajak works with marginalized children and
adolescents. Committed to the rights of the child, its ultimate aim is to
create an gender- just environment of care and
protection around these children so that they grow up as more responsible,
productive and law-abiding citizens.
Most of Praajak's programmes are in education,
health and social rehabilitation. They are based on the active participation
of the children as well as the various institutions that make up their
surroundings.
Praajak works mainly with boys and youths because it sees crime, violence,
sexual abuse, gambling and substance abuse as determined by the social
construction of masculinity.
Gender forms the bedrock of Praajak's vision of social transformation. This
was a primary motivation to set up Praajak.
Using a range of awareness-raising methods, like art and theatre workshops,
Praajak seeks to restore self-esteem, social responsibility and creativity in
the children in order to empower them.
Current organisational strategy with respect to
intervention programmes including advocacy and
community development has been developed over the last seven years, largely
on the basis of our vision and mission and our field experiences. Four years
ago Praajak made a conscious decision to focus on the rights of the child as
the indicators for progress. This has permeated every level of the organisation across all projects.
It has also decided to place gender at the base of our social analysis right
from the inception of the organisation and has also
taken a considered decision to focus on urban areas. This is largely due to
the fact that founding members of the organisation
had considerable experience of working with gender and with related urban
issues at the inception of the organisation.
Strategy is reviewed every year in workshops held for different levels of
staff. This is fed back to the Governing Body and our volunteer corps.
Suggestions are incorporated and the strategy is then placed in front of
project staff to develop and implement plans accordingly.
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