Parivaar's Fundraising Page

Parivaar ( www.parivaar.org ) is a humanitarian organization inspired by the spiritual and humanistic ideals of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, with its chief institutions based in West Bengal, and a recent second branch in Madhya Pradesh. For last 17 years, Parivaar has worked towards the total care and overall development of children who are highly vulnerable to exploitation, victimization and trafficking, including orphans, street children, abandoned children, and extremely impoverished children from tribal areas. It also conducts many more humanitarian activities for the destitute and uncared, including elderly and shelterless.

In Bengal Parivaar has two residential educational institutions – Parivaar Vivekananda Sevashrama for Boys and Parivaar Sarada Teertha for girls. With over 2200 resident children, these are West Bengal’s largest free residential institutions for children from deprived and destitute backgrounds. We provide residential living, education, and overall child development through sports, cultural and recreational activities etc in a loving and caring atmosphere for boys and girls from early age of 5 till their higher education (university level graduation or employability programs).

Parivaar’s Residential Institutions are seen as a model institution in the field of caretaking and overall development of vulnerable children. We have been the recipient of the 2011 National Award for Child Welfare from the President of India, the highest recognition by the Government of India.

In the year 2016 Parivaar began to expand to a new geography of Madhya Pradesh purchasing 17 acres of land at villageSandalpur in District Dewas along with a plot of land on banks of Narmada at village Navada. From 2017 onwards it has started 157 Day Boarding (Meal cum Education centres) for children in selected impoverished tribal and rural pockets called ‘Sri Ramakrishna Vivekananda Seva Kutir’ in Dewas, Sehore, Mandla, Sheopur and Chhindwara districts. At these Kutirs more than 15,000 children are getting nutritious meals (breakfast and dinner) along with strong Supplementary education and Life-Skills over morning and evening shifts. We are endeavouring to set up 250 such Kutirs in MP by March 2021. Also, a residential educational institution, modeled on lines of our Bengal institutions, is right now under construction at Sandalpur village in Dewas district which will house 500 resident children initially, and will be gradually scaled up to a capacity of more than 2000 resident children. Eventually one residential educational institution in each of the districts of MP where Seva Kutirs are under operation, will be set up. In the interim Parivaar has also started 2 hostels on rental premises in Mandla for 92 children, and one hostel in Sehore district in village Diwadiya for 20 girls.

Present Work and Future Plan

We are doing extensive relief work to mitigate the hardships faced by people due to COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing lockdown. We have employed a diverse set of measures, ranging from monetary relief, supply of food stock, coordinating with government officials in medical, health and other services, and keeping a track of implementation of government schemes in more than 200 villages in Madhya Pradesh. You can have a look at a short video clip on this, by clicking on the below link: 

 https://youtu.be/y7cmbf8USiI 

We are also trying to do relief work near our Residential Institution in Bengal, in response to the natural disaster caused by Cyclone Amphan.

Together with these efforts, in 2020, we will keep up our forward journey of serving more and more children in tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh. We are planning to start 50 more Seva Kutirs in MP in the next few months in Sheopur and Mandla districts, to serve poor, tribal children by providing them meals and education.

History

Parivaar was started by Vinayak Lohani (an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and IIM Calcutta), who, inspired by spiritual and humanistic ideals of Swami Vivekananda, decided to devote his entire life for serving ‘Divine in Man’ as taught by Swami Vivekananda. Vinayak Lohani gave up the prospect of highly lucrative corporate career by not taking any placement from IIM. Immediately after passing out of IIM in 2003, with just 3 children in a small rented building with almost no financial resources, Vinayak started Parivaar. Till the level of 15children at Parivaar, he used to take some lectures for students appearing for Management entrance examinations and through that could meet the expenses. Gradually people began to be inspired by this dedicated service and started to support the initiative andthe number of children at Parivaar grew. At the end of 2004, Parivaar could purchase its own land to develop its permanent campus called Parivaar Ashram. Parivaar’s mission and theme began to attract dedicated youth, many of whom joined Parivaar Ashram as resident workers and began to become bearers of thismission.

Starting from scratch and thereafter developed brick by brick, Parivaar is being continuously developed and molded into a unique institution transforming the lives of each of its residential members (children and adults) and acting as a training ground of highly dedicated life- committed grassroots workers.