NEN focuses on women’s rights agenda through a number of issues such as Health, particularly reproductive and sexual health rights, Livelihood and natural resource management, Violence against women, Human Rights and Peace building.

NEN has been involved with various livelihood programmes like weaving and handloom, natural resource management, food processing, land based income generating activities and many more. The attempt has always been to interlink different activities with various issues like gender, health, rights, violence against women, ecology and environment etc. When women come together to weave, they discuss their problems. They talk of health, gender and rights. Thus, NEN's Livelihoods programme is more than income generation. It's about touching individuals and their potentials and transforming young women into agents of change.

NEN has also facilitated a series of workshops and training on NRM and herbal medicines in the region ranging from rooftop water harvesting, Sloping Agricultural Land technology (SALT), herbal gardening including identification and documentation of medicinal plants and herbs, to vermin composting and the like. Management of natural resource and biodiversity has become a very important activity in rural areas and women as traditional managers of households have a great stake in natural resource management, as they are providers of firewood and drinking water – the two essentials for running the household. Thus the workshops and trainings have been about creating a manageable system to use the products for themselves and make incomes at the same time.

Ever since our inception, NEN has endeavoured to engender the Human Rights discourse in the NE region and to bring about an understanding that women’s rights are human rights. The NEN team has over the years successfully raised the issue of Violence Against Women (VAW) and Domestic Violence (DV) in the region and has meticulously documented the incidence of the same. NEN is an integral part of the NGO Advocacy team for The Convention for the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Amongst Women (CEDAW) and has been monitoring the fulfilment of the government’s obligations under the Convention in the north east region. NEN was a member of the Indian NGO delegation during the presentation of the Government of India’s official report to the expert CEDAW Committee at the UN Headquarters, New York, January 2000. We are also part of the national alliance of women’s organisations involved in preparing shadow reports to the CEDAW committee.