Category: Lead Read
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‘I wanted to build a family-like institution for orphaned children’
APPALLED by the stark reality of 31 million orphaned children in India and the condition of institutions housing them, Dr Kiran Modi decided to spread ‘Eternal Sunrise’ in their lives by starting Udayan Care in 1994. What started as just one small family home (Ghar) for abandoned and orphaned children in Delhi, is now providing…
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‘Menstrual health takes a back seat during a crisis’
“MENSTRUAL health and hygiene automatically take a back seat during a crisis and nobody even takes notice,” says Arun Gupta of Pinkishe Foundation. The NGO is currently fighting the sanitary pad crisis triggered by the pandemic by helping thousands of young girls and women get access to clean and sustainable sanitary products across India –…
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‘Our English medium school caters to lowest of low’
BASED in Patna, the capital of India’s poorest state, Shoshit Seva Sangh provides free quality education in an English medium school to the Musahar community in Bihar, whose literacy rate is just 6%. The Musahars live in subhuman conditions in ghettos scattered across several villages in the state. The children, therefore, have to be given…
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‘Seeing change in lives of children & families is heart touching’
COMPLETING 30 years in the social sector, Akanksha Foundation has been educating children from low-income communities across Mumbai and Pune – first, through their after-school centres and, since 2007, through the Akanksha Schools. The non-profit organisation has gone through an incredible journey with a mission to build the largest network of innovative schools that empowers…
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‘Listen to rural communities to understand their needs’
This is the lesson Zarina Screwvala learned after she co-founded Swades Foundation SWADES Foundation believes that India will never achieve its true growth story until its rural communities – about 70% of the country’s population – are empowered. With an aim to provide holistic social reforms, Swades has empowered millions by giving them access to…
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‘We need to build a society where girls are as wanted as boys’
Aarti for Girls was founded on this principle; a chat with founder Sandhya Puchalapalli IN 1977, Sandhya Puchalapalli, an English teacher in her early twenties, moved to Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh, with her husband and two young girls. Working as a government high school teacher, Sandhya became painfully aware of the discrepancies between male and female…
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“I want to get every Indian volunteering”
Says Bhumi co-founder Dr. Prahalathan KK – and what he did during the pandemic pause STARTED by a small group of friends in 2006, Bhumi provides the youth with a platform to serve the society and bridges the gap between the educated and the uneducated. Bhumi today is one of India’s largest independent non-profit organisations…