Our History


Will Muir and Rujuta Teredesai initially founded a venture called Solar Cinemas in 2009, which was intended to provide information on social and development issues to residents of low-income communities through cinema. They soon found that women and girls were unable to attend these cinema screenings in their communities due to a number of gender inequity issues – women and girls had limited leisure time and mobility due to an inequality in the division of housework, concerns about sexual harassment and safety, and familial restrictions. This awareness, along with the fact that women’s empowerment programmes generally focus on women and girls, gave Rujuta and Will the incentive to work on gender equity through focusing on the attitudes and behaviour of men and boys in the communities and they co-founded Equal Community Foundation.