- Community Development ·
Providing Education & Training to Women in India
Helping women access education to resolve the gender gap across India
- India
- hello@actionchange.org
Project Summary
Project Challenge
Project Solution
Impact
Reports
Project Summary
Although India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, that is not the case for a large portion of the population, who are being left behind with high youth unemployment, poverty, poor infrastructure, and a lack of access to quality education. Women are traditionally still left behind in India and the gender gap is of a huge concern.
Working with existing NGO’s and organisations on the ground, we aim to empower communities by providing relevant training in life-skill development, vocational training, including training in IT literacy, access to sports activities, and an improved learning environment.
Project Challenge
Many complex issues still persist in India surrounding gender equality and equal access to quality education for different sectors of society. Women, young people, rural students and those with special educational needs face various different challenges when it comes to accessing employment and vocational training that could lead to a sustainable livelihood. This inequality is keeping parts of the country in extreme poverty and we aim to break this cycle.
Many families in India are stuck in the cycle of poverty. In 2010 Indian Parliament passed an Act to provide free compulsory education for all but today girls are still forced to drop out at a young age to help at home. This project is investing in training women to help find work as well as enhancing education, for students, to build a skilled community that are equipped to fight the cycle of poverty.
Project Solution
Our programmes support, empower and increase employment opportunities for women, students, and marginalised people in India. We do this by promoting and supporting gender equality initiatives, improving dynamic learning and teaching environments, and providing support to local educational institutions so that they can provide better and more equal access to quality education and vocational training.
Impact
We aim to leave our partners with the skills, resources & confidence they need to continue working towards their own goals & objectives for development. Supporting women, students & young adults in developing their own resources for life skills development, seeking & securing employment, increasing their emotional & physical well-being, we hope to empower future generations. Placing our focus on training over funding, we can equip communities with the tools they need to create lasting change.
Reports
Project Report | Oct 7, 2026
Refocus support to a real group in need
By Padmini and the team | India Lead
Hello Supporters, Donors and Friends,
It’s been a few months since our last update and we have some big news to share. We’ve always promised to be open and honest with you, so grab a cuppa and let us fill you in on everything happening over here in India!
The Tough Bit First
Back in June we told you about the catch-22 we were facing: more families pushed into hardship, more demand for education and training, and fundraising getting quieter by the day. Since then, things have become even tougher. Donations have kept dropping and right now the donation pot for this project is empty.
That’s a hard sentence to write! But it pushed us to make a brave and important decision about where we can make the biggest difference with what we have.
Our Big Decision
We are bringing our resources together and focusing this project on one group of women who are so often overlooked: young girls and women in our community living with disabilities.
Here’s why. Most projects for women simply aren’t set up for women with disabilities, from the buildings to the way sessions are run. So time and again, these women are left out completely. That leaves a real gap, and some of the most vulnerable women in the community end up with no support at all.
We’re in a strong position to fill that gap. Our school already supports children and adults with disabilities, so we have the experience, the trusted relationships with local families and a team who know how to help every learner grow at their own pace. Bringing these two parts of our work together just makes sense.
What Happens Next
Over the coming months we’re moving resources over to our disability centre. By working in partnership, we can share costs, share skills and be so much stronger together as we ride out this incredibly difficult time.
Supporting women across India will always be close to our hearts, and we hope one day to reach many more people again. Our vision and mission haven’t changed one bit! We have creative ideas and big long-term goals up our sleeves. For now, we’re excited to pour everything into one group of women who need us most, and to help break the traditions that have held them back for far too long.
How You Can Help
This is where you come in! With an empty pot, every single donation makes an immediate difference.
Remember our big dream from June? Just under 300 wonderful people have supported this project over the years. If each of you set up a regular $5 (about £4) a month, that would create $1,500 every single month. That dream is still very much alive! A monthly gift gives us the steady heartbeat we need to plan ahead and keep our doors open for these women.
If a monthly donation isn’t possible right now, you can still be a superstar by sharing our project link with friends, family and colleagues. It costs nothing and every share really does count.
A Few Facts Worth Sharing!
Around 1 in 6 people worldwide live with a significant disability. That’s roughly 1.3 billion people!
India’s last census counted over 26 million people living with a disability.
Back in 1991, Kerala became the first state in India to be declared fully literate. Education really is in our DNA here!
Save the Date
GivingTuesday falls on Tuesday 1st December this year. It’s a global day of generosity and the perfect moment to share our project far and wide. Pop it in your diary!
Thank you for standing by us through every twist and turn. We could not do any of this without you.
With warmest wishes and endless gratitude, Padmini and the team
Project Report | Jun 5, 2026
India Transformation through Education For Girls
By Padmini and our Girl Power team! | India Lead
Hello Supporters, Donors and Friends,
Can you believe we’re half way through the year? Well it’s been rather fun and eventful over here in India. For this update, I decided to take a slightly different approach and do a bit of a deeper look back at exactly what we have achieved together, as well as give you a sneak peek into our latest milestones from the last three months!
We all know the global climate is serving up unique financial challenges right now, creating a bit of a catch-22. As life gets a bit tougher for people, more families are pushed into hardship, meaning the demand for equal access to education and vocational training has skyrocketed just as general fundraising takes a quiet turn. Behind the scenes, we have done everything humanly possible to strip our costs right back to the bare bones so every single penny goes straight to our front lines.
But honestly? Our outlook remains fiercely positive because of you! You are the absolute backbone of this mission.
Years of Training and Real ImpactFollowing on from our recent updates about breaking the cycle of extreme poverty and the wonderful stories from our Kerala workshops, we want to celebrate what your generosity builds. Our main focus is putting training over funding—equipping women and young people with the literal tools, IT literacy, and confidence they need to secure a sustainable livelihood.
Thanks to your ongoing support over the years, look at the amazing milestones we have achieved together:
The “Girl Power” Safe Spaces: We have sustained vibrant weekly community hubs where rural women gather, learn crafts, build mutual trust, and break silences by discussing sensitive health and wellness topics with complete dignity.
Empowering Future Generations: We have successfully provided children with essential educational materials and improved learning environments to ensure they stay in school.
What We Did This Quarter: Over the last three months, we have kept our core centres open, running our life-skills workshops smoothly, and distributing vital health kits to girls and women in the villages.
While seeing this human impact is spectacular, it brings us to our biggest hurdle right now: long-term sustainability.
Opening the doors to our centres and buying workshop supplies requires a predictable heartbeat of funding. Right now, this project is facing a real challenge because we currently have not a single monthly donor on the books to give us a regular income.
This means our work has to be ad-hoc—we raise funds hard, split those precious resources across our vital programs, and stretch them as far as possible until we can raise more. It is challenging, but we know the impact is amazing. We want to change this so we can put a strong, permanent monthly work program in place.
We noticed that just under 300 wonderful people have supported and donated to this project in the past.
Let’s Dream Big For a Second! Imagine if every single one of our past supporters felt able to set up a regular $5 (about £4) a month commitment. That would instantly create a roaring, life-changing $1,500 USD every single month!
With a regular heartbeat of funding like that, we could build a rock-solid work program for these women and students without the constant stress of running dry. As the old saying goes, if you don’t ask you don’t get, so we are putting that big, positive dream out into the universe! If a monthly donation isn’t in the cards for you, you can still be an absolute superstar by sharing our project link with your networks for free. Every single share really does count.
A Few Fun and Inspiring Facts!
The Power of the Pen: Did you know that a child born to a mother who can read is 50% more likely to survive past the age of 5? Education truly changes generations!
A Mathematical Marvel: India gave the world the concept of zero! The revolutionary idea of treating zero as a number was developed by ancient Indian mathematicians.
Project Report | Mar 4, 2026
Education is our future
By Shayle Havemann | Project leader
Introduction Many complex issues still persist in India surrounding gender equality and equal access to quality education for different sectors of society. Women, young people, rural students and those with special educational needs face various different challenges when it comes to accessing employment and vocational training that could lead to a sustainable livelihood. This inequality is keeping parts of the country in extreme poverty and we aim to break this cycle Report We aim to leave our partners with the skills, resources & confidence they need to continue working towards their own goals & objectives for development. Supporting women, students & young adults in developing their own resources for life skills development, seeking & securing employment, increasing their emotional & physical well-being, we hope to empower future generations. Placing our focus on training over funding, we can equip communities with the tools they need to create lasting change. A donation of $15 will provide education to one child for one weekAlthough India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, that is not the case for a large portion of the population, who are being left behind with high youth unemployment, poverty, poor infrastructure, and a lack of access to quality education. Women are traditionally still left behind in India and the gender gap is of a huge concern.
Working with existing NGO’s and organisations on the ground, we aim to empower communities by providing relevant training in life-skill development, vocational training, including training in IT literacy, access to sports activities, and an improved learning environment.
Many complex issues still persist in India surrounding gender equality and equal access to quality education for different sectors of society. Women, young people, rural students and those with special educational needs face various different challenges when it comes to accessing employment and vocational training that could lead to a sustainable livelihood. This inequality is keeping parts of the country in extreme poverty and we aim to break this cycle.
Many families in India are stuck in the cycle of poverty. In 2010 Indian Parliament passed an Act to provide free compulsory education for all but today girls are still forced to drop out at a young age to help at home. This project is investing in training women to help find work as well as enhancing education, for students, to build a skilled community that are equipped to fight the cycle of poverty.
Our programmes support, empower and increase employment opportunities for women, students, and marginalised people in India. We do this by promoting and supporting gender equality initiatives, improving dynamic learning and teaching environments, and providing support to local educational institutions so that they can provide better and more equal access to quality education and vocational training.
We aim to leave our partners with the skills, resources & confidence they need to continue working towards their own goals & objectives for development. Supporting women, students & young adults in developing their own resources for life skills development, seeking & securing employment, increasing their emotional & physical well-being, we hope to empower future generations. Placing our focus on training over funding, we can equip communities with the tools they need to create lasting change.
Project Report | Oct 7, 2026
Refocus support to a real group in need
By Padmini and the team | India Lead
Hello Supporters, Donors and Friends,
It’s been a few months since our last update and we have some big news to share. We’ve always promised to be open and honest with you, so grab a cuppa and let us fill you in on everything happening over here in India!
The Tough Bit First
Back in June we told you about the catch-22 we were facing: more families pushed into hardship, more demand for education and training, and fundraising getting quieter by the day. Since then, things have become even tougher. Donations have kept dropping and right now the donation pot for this project is empty.
That’s a hard sentence to write! But it pushed us to make a brave and important decision about where we can make the biggest difference with what we have.
Our Big Decision
We are bringing our resources together and focusing this project on one group of women who are so often overlooked: young girls and women in our community living with disabilities.
Here’s why. Most projects for women simply aren’t set up for women with disabilities, from the buildings to the way sessions are run. So time and again, these women are left out completely. That leaves a real gap, and some of the most vulnerable women in the community end up with no support at all.
We’re in a strong position to fill that gap. Our school already supports children and adults with disabilities, so we have the experience, the trusted relationships with local families and a team who know how to help every learner grow at their own pace. Bringing these two parts of our work together just makes sense.
What Happens Next
Over the coming months we’re moving resources over to our disability centre. By working in partnership, we can share costs, share skills and be so much stronger together as we ride out this incredibly difficult time.
Supporting women across India will always be close to our hearts, and we hope one day to reach many more people again. Our vision and mission haven’t changed one bit! We have creative ideas and big long-term goals up our sleeves. For now, we’re excited to pour everything into one group of women who need us most, and to help break the traditions that have held them back for far too long.
How You Can Help
This is where you come in! With an empty pot, every single donation makes an immediate difference.
Remember our big dream from June? Just under 300 wonderful people have supported this project over the years. If each of you set up a regular $5 (about £4) a month, that would create $1,500 every single month. That dream is still very much alive! A monthly gift gives us the steady heartbeat we need to plan ahead and keep our doors open for these women.
If a monthly donation isn’t possible right now, you can still be a superstar by sharing our project link with friends, family and colleagues. It costs nothing and every share really does count.
A Few Facts Worth Sharing!
Around 1 in 6 people worldwide live with a significant disability. That’s roughly 1.3 billion people!
India’s last census counted over 26 million people living with a disability.
Back in 1991, Kerala became the first state in India to be declared fully literate. Education really is in our DNA here!
Save the Date
GivingTuesday falls on Tuesday 1st December this year. It’s a global day of generosity and the perfect moment to share our project far and wide. Pop it in your diary!
Thank you for standing by us through every twist and turn. We could not do any of this without you.
With warmest wishes and endless gratitude, Padmini and the team
Project Report | Jun 5, 2026
India Transformation through Education For Girls
By Padmini and our Girl Power team! | India Lead
Hello Supporters, Donors and Friends,
Can you believe we’re half way through the year? Well it’s been rather fun and eventful over here in India. For this update, I decided to take a slightly different approach and do a bit of a deeper look back at exactly what we have achieved together, as well as give you a sneak peek into our latest milestones from the last three months!
We all know the global climate is serving up unique financial challenges right now, creating a bit of a catch-22. As life gets a bit tougher for people, more families are pushed into hardship, meaning the demand for equal access to education and vocational training has skyrocketed just as general fundraising takes a quiet turn. Behind the scenes, we have done everything humanly possible to strip our costs right back to the bare bones so every single penny goes straight to our front lines.
But honestly? Our outlook remains fiercely positive because of you! You are the absolute backbone of this mission.
Years of Training and Real ImpactFollowing on from our recent updates about breaking the cycle of extreme poverty and the wonderful stories from our Kerala workshops, we want to celebrate what your generosity builds. Our main focus is putting training over funding—equipping women and young people with the literal tools, IT literacy, and confidence they need to secure a sustainable livelihood.
Thanks to your ongoing support over the years, look at the amazing milestones we have achieved together:
The “Girl Power” Safe Spaces: We have sustained vibrant weekly community hubs where rural women gather, learn crafts, build mutual trust, and break silences by discussing sensitive health and wellness topics with complete dignity.
Empowering Future Generations: We have successfully provided children with essential educational materials and improved learning environments to ensure they stay in school.
What We Did This Quarter: Over the last three months, we have kept our core centres open, running our life-skills workshops smoothly, and distributing vital health kits to girls and women in the villages.
While seeing this human impact is spectacular, it brings us to our biggest hurdle right now: long-term sustainability.
Opening the doors to our centres and buying workshop supplies requires a predictable heartbeat of funding. Right now, this project is facing a real challenge because we currently have not a single monthly donor on the books to give us a regular income.
This means our work has to be ad-hoc—we raise funds hard, split those precious resources across our vital programs, and stretch them as far as possible until we can raise more. It is challenging, but we know the impact is amazing. We want to change this so we can put a strong, permanent monthly work program in place.
We noticed that just under 300 wonderful people have supported and donated to this project in the past.
Let’s Dream Big For a Second! Imagine if every single one of our past supporters felt able to set up a regular $5 (about £4) a month commitment. That would instantly create a roaring, life-changing $1,500 USD every single month!
With a regular heartbeat of funding like that, we could build a rock-solid work program for these women and students without the constant stress of running dry. As the old saying goes, if you don’t ask you don’t get, so we are putting that big, positive dream out into the universe! If a monthly donation isn’t in the cards for you, you can still be an absolute superstar by sharing our project link with your networks for free. Every single share really does count.
A Few Fun and Inspiring Facts!
The Power of the Pen: Did you know that a child born to a mother who can read is 50% more likely to survive past the age of 5? Education truly changes generations!
A Mathematical Marvel: India gave the world the concept of zero! The revolutionary idea of treating zero as a number was developed by ancient Indian mathematicians.
Project Report | Mar 4, 2026
Education is our future
By Shayle Havemann | Project leader
Introduction Many complex issues still persist in India surrounding gender equality and equal access to quality education for different sectors of society. Women, young people, rural students and those with special educational needs face various different challenges when it comes to accessing employment and vocational training that could lead to a sustainable livelihood. This inequality is keeping parts of the country in extreme poverty and we aim to break this cycle Report We aim to leave our partners with the skills, resources & confidence they need to continue working towards their own goals & objectives for development. Supporting women, students & young adults in developing their own resources for life skills development, seeking & securing employment, increasing their emotional & physical well-being, we hope to empower future generations. Placing our focus on training over funding, we can equip communities with the tools they need to create lasting change. A donation of $15 will provide education to one child for one week
Related posts
- Community Development ·
