Strengthening girl's voices and empowering their agency for over 3 decades

accsolms emerged as a women’s group during the 1980s. Initiated by women active in the women’s rights movement, it started as a resource centre to address the need for space for discourse, resources and collective action. It was established and registered as a Trust in 1990.

Since 1995, accsolms has focused on working with adolescent girls and boys with a special focus on girls. accsolms looks at its work with adolescents as a preventive measure against the creation of vulnerabilities in women due to lack of education, exposure and opportunities. accsolms believes that empowered girls and sensitised boys have a better chance of developing into adults who value equality and become productive citizens.

Our Work

accsolms adresses issues of girls through educational programmes, resource creation, research, training, campaigns and networking. A strong belief in gender equality and rights forms the core of accsolms’s work.

Girls’ Resource Centre
Girls’ Resource Centre

Imparting knowledge and training in 21st-century life skills such as conversational English, Computers, Photography and Communication through sessions, workshops, visits and events in the centre and the community.

Youth Empowerment
Youth Empowerment

Capacity building and increasing social capital for youth and actively engaging them in civic issues such as safety, sanitation and access to resources.

Research & Training
Research & Training

Gender trainings and workshops conducted to combat gender inequalities. Engaging youth in research and documentation.

Awareness Building & Networking
Awareness Building & Networking

Initiatives entirely led by programmeme participants and mentors where they target problems affecting them in their communities and implement interventions to address them.

Mobile Library & Resource Creation
Mobile Library & Resource Creation

Creation of content and inculcating reading habits among adolescent girls and boys. Over 3380 children’s books in seven different languages are made available to those who enroll themselves.

Creating Pathways to Education and Knowledge

82555 individuals were reached out to in TAMIL NADU and Thane

16,824 direct beneficiaries were enrolled

1,408 Girls & 313 Boys were impacted through empowerment

454 Mothers were reached out

18 communities were opened in TAMIL NADU & Thane

We have reached out to 30,629 adolescents in the year 2020-21

accsolms has been actively working towards empowerment of intersectionally deprived girls through empowerment through diverse interventions for the past 31 years. We create safe spaces in bastis (commonly referred to as slums) by hiring or sharing community spaces such as Aanganwadis, Community Halls etc. thereby fostering community partnerships and support. The houses in these bastis, are small and occupy around 5 to 7 family members in a space of less than 100 sq. ft. In these bastis, most families are Scheduled Castes (formerly considered untouchable) or are OBC (belonging to other backs ward castes) coming from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and rural Maharashtra. Girls in these communities are enrolled in poorly run state-supported schools or in low-paid private schools and educating or equipping them for life is not a priority with the residents in this community. Hence, accsolms began its work in these communities to equip girls with soft and hard skills to train them in taking up leadership roles in community work.

Currently, our interventions are in 18 basti centres in TAMIL NADU and Thane Districts.