About
Vimarsh is a community-based organisation working in Nainital district, Uttarakhand, now in its 25th year. We work directly with women, adolescents and children — through village-level groups, counselling and legal aid, school-based health and rights education, and support for children's education.
Our Story
From the Foreword to Vimarsh's 25th-anniversary report:
Vimarsh's journey is not the story of an institution over 25 years — it is the shared story of the courage, struggle and empowerment of thousands of women, children, girls and communities. In these 25 years, we have learned that change does not come from a single project or intervention. It is born when a woman stands up for her rights, when a girl chooses her own dreams, when a community unites for change — and when small efforts combine into the foundation of larger social change. Vimarsh's identity has never been only about providing help to people, but about developing leadership, confidence and the capacity for change within them.— Kanchan Bhandari, Managing Trustee
Vimarsh began in 1998 as a single activity — a meeting of women — in two villages, Mangoli and Khamari. It was registered as a public charitable trust in Nainital on 12 November 2001, under the Indian Trusts Act, around a short mandate that hasn't changed since: a society free of exploitation, without the divisions of class, that includes every capability.
Its founder, Kanchan Bhandari, came to the work after nine years at CHIRAG, which she left in 1998, and began Vimarsh in 2001 with a fellowship. The organisation's name — विमर्श, vimarsh: deliberation, reflection, the act of thinking a matter through together — was given to it by Anil Chaudhary, who was there from Vimarsh's forming and remained its guru and mentor for twenty-seven years until his death. Kanhaiya Lal gave Kanchan Bhandari her first opportunity in public life; Yashodhara Dasgupta taught her how to work, and how to carry a sensitive understanding of women's and children's issues into practice; Ravi Chopra supported the organisation through its early years. Sanjeev Singh and Renu Thakur, Vimarsh's first Board of Trustees, gave the young trust its footing.
Vision
Mission
Long-Term Goals
- Strengthen the rights, safety, dignity, and leadership of women and girls, enabling them to participate meaningfully in household, community, and public decision-making.
- Promote the rights, protection, well-being, and holistic development of children, with a focus on creating safe and supportive environments for children.
- Build strong community-based institutions and local leadership so that communities can collectively identify issues, develop solutions, and lead their own development processes.
- Strengthen Panchayati Raj Institutions and local governance by promoting greater community participation, transparency, accountability, and responsive decision-making.
- Advance gender equality, social justice, and human rights through community awareness, collective action, advocacy, and engagement with relevant institutions.
- Improve access to essential services and entitlements, including education, health, nutrition, social protection, and government schemes, particularly for marginalised and underserved communities.
- Promote sustainable management and conservation of natural resources through community participation and locally appropriate approaches.
- Strengthen the social and economic resilience of marginalised and disadvantaged communities by supporting sustainable livelihoods, access to opportunities, and community-led development.
- Develop community leadership and collective action so that local communities become sustained agents of social change rather than only beneficiaries of development interventions.
- Build stronger networks and collaborations among community-based organisations and other stakeholders to advance social justice, rights, gender equality, and sustainable community development.
Values
Not stated explicitly as a list in the source material. Based on consistent language across the annual report, candidates likely to reflect Vimarsh's actual practice are suggested below for the team to confirm or correct:
Suggested, not confirmed — please validate before publishing as an official values statement.
Our Approach
Every Vimarsh programme is built around a village-level group — of women, of adolescent girls, of adolescent boys — that meets regularly, is trained, and takes on its own leadership over time. Paralegal volunteers, women leaders and youth organisers from these communities are trained to carry the work forward themselves
Our People
Board of Trustees
- Kanchan Bhandari — Managing Trustee
- Renu Thakur — Trustee
- Anil Chaudhary — Trustee
- Sangeeta Maurya — Trustee
Founding trustees
- Sanjeev Singh — Founding Trustee
- Renu Thakur — Founding Trustee
Vimarsh also remembers Anil Chaudhary — who gave the organisation its name and served as its guru and mentor for twenty-seven years — not as a trustee, but as the teacher from whom the organisation took its direction.
Team
"Bhawana Kunwar" and "Bhawana Kunwal" both appear in the source and may be the same person recorded with a spelling variation, or two different people — please confirm. Role titles, photos and short bios are pending consent and confirmation from each team member.
Standing Committees
Statutory and standing committee seats Vimarsh holds, as of 2025.
Our Journey
A quarter century, told in the order it happened — from a trust deed signed in November 2001 to a seat on the district's own committees.
Two villages, and a fellowship
The first villages are Mangoli and Khamari; the first activity is simply a meeting of women.
The trust is registered
12 November 2001, Nainital, under the Indian Trusts Act: women's rights, children's rights, environment.
Five balwadis, and a first funder
Uttarakhand Seva Nidhi, Almora, supports five balwadis where children could walk to one per gram sabha.
A meeting on the Mall Road
A funder's field visit to Khamari leads to a proposal for women's training, and a first lesson in utilisation certificates.
Seven lakh, and naming the unnameable
ActionAid helps build the budget line by line; the KOPAL programme begins, among the first in Uttarakhand to speak openly about female foeticide.
Inside the room
The state appoints Vimarsh to its committees and names it a service provider under the domestic violence law, a role it still holds.
Childline 1098 comes to Nainital
Nainital's 1098 ran from Vimarsh until the government took it over in 2022; Sahyog Sanstha, Lucknow joins as a partner from 2013–14.
Money enters the collectives
Recognised as Gender Champion District organisation; the NABARD self-help group programme begins in Khurpatal and Simalkha.
Eighty-four villages, and 169 women into office
Panchayat Jagrukta Abhiyan trains 120 newly elected women representatives across 84 villages, four blocks; 788 children's cases through 1098; 50 collectives holding ₹6,18,918.
Lockdown
Rations reach 55 households in the first week; hygiene kits, masks and sanitary pads are stitched and distributed; Childline calls rise to 1,476, the highest year on record.
Vaccines, and the children left behind
A vaccination awareness drive surveys 35 gram panchayats in Kotabag; children orphaned by COVID-19 are linked to the Mukhyamantri Vatsalya Yojana.
Twenty-one years & five girls to Pune
Tarang expands to 30 villages across Bhimtal, Ramgarh, Dhari and Betalghat; five girls complete a year-long course at Navgurukul, Pune and now work in multinational firms.
Fellowships, libraries, nurseries
654 Childline cases, 224 of them concerning violence; fellowships carry girls into GNM nursing, agriculture and polytechnic courses; four gram sabhas raise a nursery of 2,500 saplings.
AAGAZ — a beginning, at scale
Women's organisations are established in all 40 villages of the AAGAZ project, reaching 800 women; 115 cases of violence are addressed; 13,405 trees are planted under Grow Billion Trees.
Inside the institutions
Eleven statutory committee seats, from the High Court's POSH committee to the district's PCPNDT and labour committees; Hope for Children opens five support centres and libraries in Simalkha with the Trans Himalayan Aid Society, Canada.
Twenty-five years
Vimarsh marks a quarter century of work in Nainital district.
Twenty-five years, still growing
See the programmes this history is built on.