Asha is a feminist activist and development professional with over 15 years of broad and significant experience in Indian and global human rights work. She has been organising Dalit women’s movements in India for the past decade.
Over the past year, she has been piloting Ohana, a resource base to provide support to rights defenders in India and across the South Asian region. Ohana hopes to craft innovative approaches towards greater endurance and resilience, with self-initiated, needs based care at the core of its processes and actions.
She is the former General Secretary of the All India Dalit Women’s Forum, which is part of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) in India. The forum works to promote and protect the rights of women subjected to caste and gender discrimination.
Asha has worked in several capacities with private and public agencies, supporting a range of initiatives for accessing justice for vulnerable communities. Her focuses have included the development of structure, resources, teams, programme strategy and publications. She has expertise in strategising for campaigns and advocacy, stakeholder management for large organisations, capacity building, policy analysis, research and documentation.
She hold a master’s in Social Work from the University of Mumbai.
What gives me hope? Seeing young Dalit women from small towns and villages take up leadership, and envision a different future for themselves and their communities.Asha Kowtal