Stories of Our Alumni at Work

Alumni Stories | Edition 5

Social Enterprises established by our Alumni

To contribute towards social change, social entrepreneurs capable of innovative thinking are needed to ideate, create and implement path-breaking solutions to social problems. 

FIELD PRAC

Listed below are some of the Social Enterprises and NGOs established by our Alumni.

Ayang

After the completion of his fellowship with American India Foundation (AIF), Dharamjeet Kumar, M.A. Development, Class of 2016, returned to work at Majuli, Assam. He and his friends, Bipin and Vatan, have formed Ayang’, an organisation to engage with the Mishing community of the river island Majuli. Know more

Bastar se Bazaar Tak

This enterprise is trying to enhance livelihoods of local forest dwellers by reducing post-harvest losses and supplying high-quality, unadulterated, processed forest produce to urban consumers at a fair price.

The co-founder of BastaR se BazaaR tak, Satendra Singh Lilhare, is an alumnus of Azim Premji University (MA Development). He has also worked for more than seven years as a freelancer which includes liaison with government officials for welfare projects.

Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project

It is an intervention focused on the criminalisation of certain communities by the Police and the criminal justice system and on decarceration. The project is a grassroots litigation-research-based intervention based in Bhopal, working in specific locations, and with particular communities across the State of Madhya Pradesh.
Read more about the project here.

Nikita Sonavane, the co-founder of this project, holds Master of Laws, Law and Development (201617) and an LL.B degree from Government Law College, Mumbai. She has worked as a legal researcher and an advocate for three years. Prior to the project, she has worked on issues of Adivasi self-governance and sexual violence.

You can follow them on Twitter and Instagram for regular updates of their work.

Credence Learning Foundation (CLF)

The organisation is established at Kolar, Karnataka by Qaadir Maaz, MA Education (Batch of 2016), to work on life skills development among school students. Currently, the life skills are targeted through two interventions — Early Childhood Education (ECE) and Adolescence Education. Both the projects are on a pilot basis. CLF is working with two partner schools. Know more

Green saver and welfare

Started by our 2014 – 16 batch alumnus Suhawan Singh (MA in Development), this NGO provides development consultancy to Members of Parliament. Currently, the organisation is assisting Chirag Paswan, MP of Jamui, Bihar and designing and implementing development initiatives at the adopted village under Sansad Aadarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY), Government of India. Know more

Gubbachi Learning Community

A community of learners has come together to bring migrant out-of-school children back into the public education system. Their programme endeavours to make learning meaningful for the child and strives to improve the life chances of the child and potentially, his/​her family.
Five alumni members of Azim Premji University, namely, Somya Suri, Nomita Sikand, Rizwan Ahmed, Joseph deyone Jacobi, and Preethy Rao Patel (MA Education, Batch of 2013) wanted to hit the ground with a mix of experience, frameworks and passion which resulted in Gubbachi Learning community. 

Know more about Gubbachi.

Library for All (LfA)

The idea of Library for All (LfA) was born in the minds of two ex-students of Azim Premji University, Yasin and Kharingyo, who hail from Manipur. The initiative endeavours to provide enriched learning environment to all children by improving existing libraries and setting up new libraries in government elementary schools and thus contributing towards the transformation of the school education system in Manipur.

LfA also aims to enrich and supplement conventional curriculum in hilly regions where the variety and quality of teaching-learning resources are inadequate. It will try to ensure that all children have access to quality books and resources appropriate to their age and learning level for a joyful and quality learning.

The initiative further aims to enable all children to read, comprehend and present themselves effectively.

Visit their website.

Read more about Library for all here.
Follow them on Facebook.

Mitti Café

Mitti facilitates the creation of cafes in corporate, healthcare and educational institutions to serve organic multi-cuisine fast food and fresh juices. MITTI cafes are run by a team of persons with disabilities. By employing such persons, they believe that these persons would act as agents of change by example and thereby promote a system of self-sustenance and wellness through our unique livelihood development initiative.

These cafes are unique as they are designed as platforms for the differently-abled communities to showcase their potential for productive activity and to create awareness for the cause of equal opportunities in employment.

Alina Alam (Founder), Alumnus of Azim Premji University (MA Development, Batch of 2017), aims to provide tasty, nutritious, non-GMO and chemical-free food through this initiative. Know more.

NayiTaleem:

NayiTaleem provides continuous assessment for CBSE Schools to understand the learning gaps amongst students and communicate them to students and teachers in real-time. Currently, the team is based out of IIM Bangalore as part of the Launchpad programme of NSRCEL.

Nithin Vijayan, an alumnus of Azim Premji University (Batch of 2014 – 16) is the Founder of NayiTaleem. Get in touch with Team NayiTaleem here.

North East Educational Trust (NEET)

It is an NGO registered as a public charitable trust in Assam, Guwahati founded by Risha, an alumna of the Azim Premji University (MA Education, 2011 – 13). NEET works with the vision of creating a just, equitable and sustainable society, in which the dignity of labour is respected.

NEET’s mission is to create educational cultures that nourish autonomous, creative and critical thinkers. NEET is currently focusing on implementing library programme in government schools to strengthen children’s literature engagement and enhance their critical thinking. It intends to set up a vibrant community library and a community outreach programme that would function through a mobile library in a rural area of Kamrup District in Assam to provide access to children of that particular area to the library experience. Through it, oral folklore and narratives from the community would be documented in the form of short stories.

Read more about Risha’s work here.

Pratigya

Started in 2007 by Chandan Singh, Pratigya is a grassroots social enterprise in Jharkhand that works in the field of education, child protection and development. Through its programmes, Pratigya creates a shared community involvement in children’s education in three districts – Ranchi, Khunti and Pakud (Pakur). Pratigya is the first organisation in Jharkhand that initiated working on life-skills, personality development and financial education of the deprived children. The Life-skills Programme has been recognized and featured globally in Youth Solutions Report 2019 published by SDSN-Youth.

Committed to tackling rampant child labour and child marriage in the region, Pratigya’s Life-Skills Programme aims to provide quality education that enhances personality development and invokes democratic values among the children.

Chandan Singh, an alumnus of Azim Premji University (Batch of 2017 – 19) is the Co Founder of Pratigya.

SpacECE India Foundation

SpacECE co-founded by Aparna Chaudhari and Sachin Mohite is working to make parents aware about the importance of early childhood development in children and effective parenting.

Follow their work at SpacECE India Foundation and https://​www​.insta​gram​.com/spac…

Their efforts are documented on their website https://​www​.spacece​.co/

Spriha Society

After completion of MA Development (201517), Ankita Ghosh set up Spriha Society, accompanied by two other young professionals in March 2020.

They work with marginalised communities, and specifically, with women and children’s health (mental and physical) and their education. They are planning to set up medical camps in and around Kolkata.

As the world is currently facing a crisis, the team is distributing food kits to daily wage earners, migrant workers, domestic helpers and also a few slums. Click here to find them on Facebook and also on Linkedin

Travelling Tripod Films

Travelling Tripod Films is a documentary video and photo production house working with governments, multilateral organisations, research institutes, and nonprofits in telling human interest stories in the social development sector. 

In the course of time, they have been fortunate to have associated with individuals and organisations from India and abroad in covering some of the most fascinating stories of challenges, positive interventions, and best practices in the development landscape.

Travelling Tripod Films was founded by Goutham G (MA Development 2011- 13), along with a group of filmmakers and development practitioners.
You could know more about their work here: www​.trav​el​lingtripod​films​.com

We-Mana

We-Mana is a social enterprise that is committed to nutrition, especially the nutrition of the socially and economically marginalised. Uma R Maheswari, alumnus of Azim Premji University, MA Development (Batch of 2014) is the founder of We-Mana.
Follow their initiatives here.

Vidhya Vidhai

The purpose of Vidhya Vidhai is to bridge the gap between the resourced and under resourced schools. The drive to work for schools comes from their personal experiences with schooling. Coming from a schooling process which just taught to rote learn and have no link between what they learnt and the life they live, they realised the flaw in the education system. 

The team at Vidhya Vidhai strongly believes that every individual has the right to quality education and therefore committed themselves to work for the School Transformation Programme. Their vision is to create an egalitarian society through education, where each child has equal opportunity to access quality education.

Vidhya Vidhai is founded by Ram Prakash and Regalia, MA Education (Batch of 2017), Azim Premji University. Know more

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