Madhavi Kukreja

Founder

Founder of Vanangana · Founder of Sanatkada Trust

Madhavi Kukreja is the founder of Vanangana [1] and Sanatkada Trust [2], Indian non-profits working on women & children, human rights, arts & culture and livelihood from Chitrakoot.

Madhavi Kukreja, whose name is also spelled Kuckreja, is an Indian women's rights activist and livelihoods professional who founded Vanangana, an organisation working against violence towards women in the Chitrakoot district of Uttar Pradesh, and Sanatkada in Lucknow, which promotes traditional crafts and textiles and the cultural heritage of the city.

She is an Ashoka Fellow and has worked in the development sector for more than three decades, chiefly in Bundelkhand and Lucknow.

Early life and education

Kukreja grew up in Calcutta and was educated at Loreto House and La Martiniere. She read history at Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi, and took an MA in international politics at the New School for Social Research in New York.

Career

Kukreja began fieldwork in Chitrakoot and Karvi in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh in her mid-twenties. From 1990 to 1995 she was district coordinator of the Mahila Samakhya programme in Chitrakoot. Vanangana emerged from that work in the mid-1990s as an organisation of local women and men focused on violence against women and on helping Dalit women assert their rights. Its programmes have included training rural women as hand pump mechanics, supporting the Dalit Mahila Samiti collective, running community campaigns against violence, and providing legal support to survivors. She co-authored an account of the organisation, 'Vanangana: Tackling Violence Against Women and Children', published in 2001.

She moved to Lucknow in 2004 and from 2006 built Sanatkada, a shop and centre that sources and markets handmade textiles and crafts from artisans and non-governmental organisations across India, including Lucknow's chikankari work. Sanatkada also ran training in computing, photography and filmmaking for young Muslim women. It has since grown into a cultural organisation running the annual Sanatkada Lucknow Festival and the Lucknow Bioscope city museum project, and the Sanatkada Trust was formally incorporated in 2019. She also founded the Sadbhavana Trust, which works on grassroots community development and women's empowerment.

Recognition

Kukreja is an Ashoka Fellow.[3][4][5][6][7]

Vanangana

Vanangana has worked since 1993 across Chitrakoot and Banda districts of Bundelkhand, Uttar Pradesh, supporting survivors of domestic and gender-based violence with legal and emotional support while building women's collectives — including a roughly 6,000-member Dalit Mahila Samiti — and running youth leadership and social-enterprise programmes across 174 villages.

Vanangana reports the following, on its own site:

1,410 women are Sangathan members
Present across 175 villages in its impact area
20,000 women impacted by relief work
5,000 women reached through the Youth Development and Empowerment Program

Sanatkada Trust

Sanatkada Trust, founded by development professional and activist Madhavi Kuckreja, has worked since the mid-2000s to document, revive and showcase Lucknow's syncretic craft and cultural heritage. It runs the Lucknow Bioscope city-heritage museum, the annual Mahindra Sanatkada Lucknow Festival held since 2010, and a crafts initiative that gives artisan women, including a leadership programme for young Muslim women, market access and technical training. Its Sanatkada Film Studio is run by a collective of young women from marginalised communities who document the city through short films and photography.