Vision

MFF envisions a world in which all formal and informal learning and working spaces are safe and gender equitable.

Mission

To ensure that all individuals feel secure and valued in their working and learning environments through: 

    • Education: Co-design learning programs to inform, make aware and empower individuals and institutions on safety and gender equity

    • Research: Develop new knowledge on gender equity and the prevention of gender-based violence in learning and working environments

    • Advocacy: Influence diverse stakeholders to design and implement effective policies, institutional practices and laws 

Values

MFF is guided by its core belief of gender equity, and is committed to fostering a culture of diversity, equity, inclusion where every individual, regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, age, religion, or background, feels valued, respected, and empowered to contribute their unique perspectives and talents. Through our work and as an institution, we strive to create safe learning and working environments where all voices are heard and valued. 

To this end, MFF is guided by the following values:

  • Gender equity

  • Inclusion

  • Participatory

  • Safety

  • Diversity

Approach

MFF’s programmes integrate holistic, participatory approaches to empower our stakeholders at the individual, community, and institutional levels. The underlying assumption, based on various studies and research that MFF has undertaken, is that all women and girls experience sexual and gender-based violence in every sphere of life. At the same time, their experiences of violence are not the same in nature and degree, depending on socio-cultural identities, economic well-being, access to opportunities, and the generational impacts of violence – these factors can impact their ability to access justice. 

MFF acknowledges that the spaces occupied by our stakeholders overlap, so the experience of unsafety by one stakeholder increases the risk and vulnerability of others. Hence, our holistic approach of working with various stakeholders on the issue of gender-based violence aims to ensure safety in all facets of life, for all. 

MFF’s target audience includes:

  • Adolescents

  • Women informal workers

  • Formal workers

  • Civil society organisations

  • Academic institutions - schools and higher education institutions

  • Government institutions

  • Workers organisations (unions)

  • Private organisations

Strategy

MFF takes a holistic, gender-transformative approach to issues of gender equity and gender-based violence. This includes working through: 

  • Empowering at the individual level to seek safety and justice

  • Capacitation of institutions and strengthening of policies to create safe, gender equitable, and enabling environments for all individuals to progress and thrive

  • Building community solidarity to create a culture of safety and empowering structures in the home, community, and the public

MFF’s evolving models of intervention are informed by the needs and challenges expressed by those we work with, thus ensuring they are survivor-centred and trauma informed. 

In accordance with the three verticals of MFF’s mission, we work through the following strategies: 

Training and education

MFF’s work on training and education is geared towards informing, making aware, and empowering individuals and institutions on safety and gender equity.

With all our stakeholders, we train and educate them on gender equality, their rights and responsibilities towards gender equality, sexual harassment, and gender-based violence. 

With formal and informal workers, we encourage them to demand accountability from their workplaces and employers and give space to their voice, enabling their agency to influence change. 

With adolescents and students, we work on their personal responsibility to change themselves and influence their peers. We also work on strategies for collaborative action towards institutional accountability, so that they can become leaders of change in their own communities. 

With institutions and authorities, we hold them accountable by creating a bottom-up demand for change and training them to enact this change. 

Advocacy

MFF’s work towards the design and implementation of effective policies, institutional practices, and laws starts by demanding accountability from institutions and governments to institute safe learning and working spaces for all. MFF also works to strengthen government and institutional capacity in this regard, so that they can enable the creation of such safe spaces. 

Research

MFF’s work with diverse stakeholders to develop new knowledge on gender equity and the prevention of gender-based violence in learning and working spaces is led from a bottom-up approach. Thus, the research is conducted by, for, and with the community - including informal workers, adolescents, and students. MFF trains the community stakeholders on community-based participatory research methodologies to create knowledge of their communities and demand change from authorities and institutions. 

Through its programs and strategic areas of intervention, the Foundation has an outreach that extends to 25+ states of India, and 10+ countries beyond Indian borders. The Foundation has capacitated nearly 4,000 adolescent leaders across the country, trained over 40,000 formal and informal workers on gender and sexual harassment in the workplace, and supported faculty and staff members of nine universities in the Commonwealth nations (apart from India) in creating strategies for safer, sexual harassment-free campus spaces. A founding member of the Delhi for Domestic Workers Network, a coalition of unions, organisations, and civil society enterprises to forward the rights and voices of domestic workers in the NCR region, the Foundation has an outreach of 40,000+ women domestic workers and informal workers in the state.

The Foundation takes forward the spirit and legacy of Dr. Martha Farrell, a renowned gender practitioner, and civil society leader.