Our Programs
Community Organizing
“We wish to work to build ...[a country] where Justice shall exist. Where no one can be detained and made to disappear as has happened with our children and grandchildren. Where a system of laws shall prevail and where one may live in an atmosphere of freedom, tolerance, and mutual respect.”
— Declaration of Principles of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
A human rights movement driven by survivors creates lasting social change because the truth of their experiences challenges impunity. When survivors publicly share their experiences and challenge perpetrators through community actions, they reduce the perpetrators’ ability to stay in power with moral authority and replicate their abusive practices elsewhere. Ensaaf organizes survivors living abroad, who have survived human rights violations in Punjab, to become advocates for their rights.
Project Highlights
Ensaaf has worked with survivors to organize yearly commemorations for human rights defender Jaswant Singh Khalra, who was abducted by Indian security forces on September 6, 1995 and murdered in late October 1995. Survivors of torture have participated in these commemorations by speaking or singing about their experiences of state abuse. In 2005, two survivors sang a poem they wrote about Khalra’s pursuit of truth and justice for victims of disappearance.
