At the Crisis Intervention Centre, we systematically respond, reach out and provide psychological, legal, medical and rehabilitative support to survivors of gender-based violence. We help with the filing of FIRs, follow up cases at the police station and court, assist survivors with negotiated settlements and provide other services that may be required.

Our approach at the crisis intervention centre is one feminist counseling where we provide the survivor with all her options and help her to take an informed decision to counter the violence. The services provided at the crisis intervention centre range from helping the woman leave her abusive home; assisting her to file a complaint, issue her statement(s) and follow up the case with the police; provide her with legal help and advise; provide medical and psychological first aid; negotiate on their behalf with their husbands and their families; and provide any other help that the survivor needs. Violence and especially domestic violence (DV) and intimate partner violence (IPV) are isolating- where the survivors feel scared, alone and singled out. As a part of the crisis intervention centre, we will also be creating a community of care which would act like a support group for survivors and make them feel less isolated in their journey of healing and recovery. Our model for the centre is one of feminist counselling where the survivor is presented with all available options and the team helps them make an informed decision about further action. In doing so, the survivor has complete autonomy to decide the course of their life. We also prioritise the mental health of the survivors, who often show signs of depression, anxiety and trauma-bonding, among other conditions. By putting the needs of the survivor first, we are able to provide specialised services that are trauma-informed and sensitive to the larger contexts in which abuse is perpetrated. We truly believe that our interventions save women from becoming another addition to the statistics or graphic headlines in the news, and keeps many of them afloat amidst the storm. Ultimately, our crisis intervention work aims to move the needle towards safer cities and inform the wider scholarship around gender-based violence.

Our work with survivors of domestic violence for the last 42 years have made us realize the lack of mental health services available to support survivors and their mental health. We have realized that abuse and violence scars the psyche of a person and the journey of healing is a long and difficult one.

We at Aweksha believe that access to mental health support services is a fundamental human right and we want to create resilient feminist support structures which guarentee this right to the survivors of abuse and violence. In order to make mental services more accessible, we intend to work towards decentralising and destigmatising mental health. The idea is to have a centre in each division of Bangalore.. The mental health support offered in these centres would be trauma-informed counseling which is informed by a nuanced understanding of abuse and violence in order to mitigate re-traumatisation. The centre will not just support women but also children who are survivors of abuse and violence. We also understand that the conversation around Domestic Violence, InterPersonal Violence and violence in general is not a binary one which only includes men and women. People of other gender and sexualities are also affected by violence and hence we want this centre to become a place where queer folx can access mental health support services which are queer affermative and trauma centered

A study on unnatural deaths among women in Bengaluru undertaken by Vimochana - a women’s rights organisation co-founded in 1979 by Aweksha’s founding team - in the late 90s found that deaths resulting from burns accounted for a majority of unnatural death cases among women in Bengaluru. This research served as the precursor to what has now become our Burns Care intervention, which has spanned 27 years, continuing through Aweksha since 2021.

At the Burns Centre at Victoria Hospital, our team provides end-to-end support to women with burn injuries, who often sustain burns as a result of domestic violence. We assist patients in recording statements, ensure arrangements for drinking water and provision of a burns-friendly diet, and refer them to shelter homes, when needed. We also provide patients with medical equipment, medicines, psychotherapy and physiotherapy. In addition, we have introduced a single-window programme that serves as a one-stop centre to help with the needs of burn survivors and their families. Through this programme, we assist survivors in applying for government schemes for persons with disabilities and receiving their monthly pension. We also follow-up cases of acid attack survivors with the Karnataka State Legal Service Authority in order to ensure that they receive the compensation to which they are entitled. We also regularly organise blood donation camps in several colleges, as well as public and private firms to enable burns survivors to have access to blood during the course of treatment as well as for procedures such as skin grafting and reconstructive surgery. In addition, we help subsidise the educational costs of children of burns victims as well as children with burns. Moreover, we organise peer support groups so that survivors can find belonging within a community and to encourage their reintegration into larger society.

Our advocacy work is aimed at making larger systemic changes in the legal and policy frameworks governing violence against women, and domestic violence in particular, with the intention of ensuring proper and timely implementation of legislation.

Section 498A of the Indian Constitution criminalizes cruelty towards a married woman by her husband or his relatives. It was passed in 1983 to curb the increasing number of dowry deaths.

There exists a strong narrative around the misuse of 498A However, the study conducted by our team in 2017 showed that there is a significant amount of underuse opposed to that of it being misused. The study also showed that the rate of conviction is only 10- 12%. Hence we look to take forward the work done by our team and advocate and build a public campaign for better implementation of the 498A law which will be aimed both at changing the narrative around misuse as well as begin tangible changes to the system for better implementation of the section.