Dhagagia Social Welfare Society (DSWS) was registered in 1995 under the West Bengal Society Registration Act XXVI of 1961. It also has approvals under the Foreign Contribution(Regulation)Act,1976, u/s. 12AA and 80G of the Income Tax Act,1961 and also registered under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Govt. of India.

DSWS is working in the Sundarbans area (North 24 PGS District and South 24 PGS District, West Bengal, India) on health, education, woman & child welfare, disaster management, and livelihoods.

Dhagagia Social Welfare Society (DSWS) has been working in the coastal belt of Sunderbans, North 24 Parganas in West Bengal for over 27 years. The organization has been working on health, education, woman & child welfare, disaster management, and livelihoods issues among the underprivileged populations. Some of the major partners in this journey have been the Government of India, Save The Children, UNICEF West Bengal, Action Aid India, FADV and the Hummingbird Foundation.

Our Vision:

To work towards promoting social justice, equity and harmony in the society.

Our Mission:

To work with the poor & marginalized section of the society especially women and children on the issues of their rights and livelihood security.

DSWS works in four thematic key priority areas:

Child Protection: We believe every child deserves a future and we give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. We protect children from abuse, neglect, exploitation, and violence in our working area. Community based protection mechanisms will be in place to stop trafficking of children for domestic work, marriage, abuse or other hazardous occupations and make child domestic work socially and culturally unacceptable through practical means (models of best practices) by which child domestic work can be successfully reduced and gradually abolished in the high endemic districts of West Bengal, India.

Child Health: We are trying to improve health seeking behaviour and practices on Infant, Young Child, and Maternal Nutrition among local marginalized communities who are severely impacted due to changes in the environment and climatic condition in the region and the decaying local economy and to strengthen the capacities of communities and other duty bearers to prevent and respond to environmental health issues in Sundarban area.

Livelihoods: We believe that sustainable livelihoods contribute to child protection by providing an enabling environment for growth. Therefore, we work to give alternative livelihood option and to build the capacity and assets of vulnerable populations, mainly women and adolescents from underprivileged communities, through vocational training and livelihoods strategies enabled by Self Help Groups.

Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Risk Reduction: Children are at the focus of all our humanitarian action. The DRR component focuses on community and school based DRR and advocacy. The humanitarian response component is purely need based and looks at a range of issues such as nutrition, food security, livelihoods, water, sanitation and hygiene, psychosocial support and facilitation of peace building measures.