Ubuntu Foundation are proud to support SNEHA through funding their work within informal settlements in Mumbai, India to empower women and communities to be catalysts of change in their own right and collaborate with existing public health systems and health care providers to create sustainable improvements in urban health. The program on Prevention of Violence against Women and Children (PVWC) aims to develop high‐impact strategies for primary prevention, ensure survivors’ access to protection and justice, empower women to claim their rights, mobilise communities around ‘zero tolerance for violence’, and respond to the needs and rights of excluded and neglected groups.

The program works to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in urban settlements through convergence of a multi-sectorial approach by: empowering communities to address and prevent gender based violence; providing services that enhance the mental health, well-being and secure legal rights of those affected by gender-based violence; supporting police and health systems to respond to the needs of women and children facing violence.

Our convergence model is based on the socio-ecologic framework on prevention of violence that works on three levels to prevent violence:

1. Primary prevention through community mobilisation, campaigns and group education

2. Secondary prevention through service provision of counselling, crisis intervention and psychosocial interventions

3. Tertiary prevention: Delivering an extended response and specialised services, and capacity-building of government and non-government organisations.

We have trained and work with a large group of community volunteers, called sanginis, who help identify survivors of violence in the communities and provide barefoot counselling. The SNEHA Counsellors work towards the reduction of violence after it is reported and try to ensure that there is no escalation of violence. This has been especially challenging in the lockdown as mobility of the survivors and our teams have been restricted. We have moved the secondary and tertiary prevention activities online through crisis helplines and crisis email facilities.

Women from our intervention areas of Dharavi and Govandi call in crisis situations and we have also been receiving calls and emails on SNEHA website from areas outside these areas. It has been especially challenging for our counsellors to provide immediate support to survivors in the pandemic situation, but they have been coordinating with the police and community volunteers to help the survivors get relief soon. Crisis counselling and intervention involved providing psychological first aid, immediate interventions such as medical, police and shelter services, and interventions with the perpetrator, family, and community members.