PRADAN

Today while going through my daily news feeds from Google on Rural Development, came across this article from The Hindu which highlighted the work being done by this Non-Profit Organization called PRADAN (PRofessional Assistance for Development ActioN).

Established in Delhi in 1983, PRADAN was pioneered by a group of young professionals, all of whom were inspired by the conviction that individuals with knowledge resources and empathy for the marginalised must work with communities at the grassroots in order to help them overcome poverty.

I too believe that until some of the educated/knowledgeable people move to the villages to assist the developmental process, not much can be achieved, despite the various Government/Non-Government Development-related Initiatives. It caught my attention and was forced to study the work being done by PRADAN towards holistic development. Some of the things that I liked about PRADAN are:-

• The involvement of motivated educated youth as executives to carry on their developmental projects
• Mobilization of funds from Government-created development schemes like National Food for Work Programme (NFFWP), Rastriya Sam Vikas Yojana (RSVY) and other district level projects being run by Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDAs)
• Focus on improving Agricultural productivity, Microenterprise promotion etc. all of which aim at generating wealth.
• To date, it has reached over 1.1 lakh rural households. That's indeed an achievement.
  

It has a 1-year apprenticeship program which is the training ground for people who want to get directly involved into developmental projects at grassroots level.