Gamana from the word meaning journey or departure (Hindi) and also mindfulness (Kannada) is an informal women’s collective working through SIEDS that seeks to deepen those areas of community interventions, campaigns, training and institutional solidarities that many of its members have been involved with for decades as part of the autonomous women’s movement. Gamana seeks to not only give shape to the work with gender and women that is now rooting itself within the different communities presently within Bangalore and Kolar districts initiated by SIEDS but also give it an autonomous presence within the women’s and civil society movements across the country.

In the present context of increasingly brutalised patriarchies and deepening divides of caste, class and religion we believe that it is critical to strengthen community (re)building efforts through weaving concerns of gender justice and feminist understandings of power, politics and plurality with inclusive democracies, sustainable livelihoods and cultural diversity.