Rahima Khatun has been associated with Nari-O-Shishu Kalyan Kendra (NOSKK)  an NGO working extensively with  the rights and dignity of women and children across West Bengal for over two decades. 

The earliest seed for NOSKK was sown on Republic Day in 1952 when Rahima’s father started a community library in their village before going on to open madrassas to promote education amongst both men and women. 

A strong desire to work for the community was ingrained in Rahima as a child and she often spent her weekends building houses, cleaning drains and later worked tirelessly as a youth leader.  But it was attending the UN World Conferences on Women in Beijing in 1995 that close to 50,000 women from across the world attended, that strengthened Rahima’s resolve to work in the field of gender rights through NOSKK.  

In this episode of No-Cost Extension, Deval and Rahima talk about how attending the Beijing conference impacted her and the organisation’s growth, NOSKK’s work in livelihoods, with self help groups and adolescent health and how they intersect. She also speaks about the transformative work of the Migration Resilience Collaborative, changing gender norms and destigmatising mental health in the communities they work with and within her organisation. 

As a member of the Rebuild India Fund, Rahima shares how unrestricted funding has made a huge change to NOSKK’s way of working and how being a part of the cohort has helped them in myriad ways.

Mahaswetha Chakraborty, a member of the Rebuild India Fund communications team was the translator during this conversation. 

To know more about the work of NOSKK please visit https://www.noskk.in/

For more information on No-Cost Extension go to https://www.dasra.org/nce  and follow Deval on X at @deval_sanghavi  and @Dasra