PRADAN

PRADAN visualizes a just and equitable society to sustain the transformation of the human condition that it brings about. Bringing about and sustaining such a change requires deliberate attention to the beliefs, values, norms and practices prevailing in society.

PRADAN’s aim, therefore, is to stimulate and enhance the sense of agency of collectives of poor people, especially women, leading to occupying their space as equals in society and taking on responsibilities of citizenship.

PRADAN was founded as a society in 1983, with a belief that the extent, diversity and endemic character of Indian poverty requires the brightest to engage with the poorest.

PRADAN has evolved over the past three decades as a leading NGO in the field of rural development. It works to reduce poverty and enhance the well-being of the poorest communities in rural India. It has a trackrecord of high quality performance, deploying high quality human resources at the cutting edge in operating responsibilities in the field. PRADAN’s work with around 1.8 million people in India’s poorest regions, mainly in Central & East India gives it confidence to systematically engage with poor communities to help them transform their communities on alarge scale.

PRADAN began by placing its personnel in other NGOs working in villages hoping they would be effective hosts to engage caring and capable professionals. The experience was not encouraging and in 1986 PRADAN initiated its own village projects while keeping its commitments with NGOs.

Geographic expansion occurred either through pilots to try out new ideas, such as in Kesla (Madhya Pradesh), Godda (Jharkhand) and Madurai (Tamil Nadu) or when opportunities arose to collaborate with government programs.

PRADAN has received recognition and several prestigious awards, including the ‘NGO of the Year’ award in 2006 by Nand and Jeet Khemka Foundation and the Resource Alliance Group. In 2009, Deep Joshi, the co-founder of PRADAN, was conferred the Ramon Magsaysay Award for his “pioneering work in rural Communities” and recognised for “his vision and leadership in bringing professionalism to the NGO

Movement in India, by effectively combining head and heart in the transformative development of rural Communities.” He was also conferred the Padma Shree by the President of India in 2010. In 2015, PRADAN was awarded Times of India (TOI) Social Impact award as the Best NGO (livelihoods category).

PRADAN’S strategies, programmes, activities, and methodologies have evolved over the last three decades. PRADAN’s founding belief was that people with knowledge and empathy must engage directly with the underprivileged communities to hasten social development. Over the years PRADAN has recruited, equipped and deployed such professionals who in turn have worked to promote sustainable livelihoods on large scale in some of the poorest pockets in the country. This has led to development of many livelihood-prototypes that have the potential to go to scale, collectivization of rural women in large numbers, and food security and higher incomes for the targeted households. Yet it was felt that there are many realms of the communities lives, beyond these focused on by PRADAN, where their own initiatives were inadequate.

The changes in terms of the new opportunities created by the economic growth, mounting aspirations of the youth, shifting stance of the State into granting legislative guarantees, strengthening access to services through ICT-based platforms, expanding markets, etc., offer huge possibilities. So PRADAN facilitates the women’s collectives to make the most of the new opportunities and spaces, by mobilising their own resources and networks to bring about large scale change.

Broadly five streams of Strategies have been adopted to facilitate the movement towards the overarching goal of ushering in large scale changes in human conditions. These strategies could be placed under the following headings:

Trigger women collective led culture change processes
Create sustainable livelihoods and income resilience for marginalized households
Rebuild Local Governance and service institutions for citizens; especially women
Create enabling environment at the grassroots
Build multi-stakeholder partnership at different levels.

Contact:

Head Office: E1/A Kailash Colony ,
New Delhi, Delhi, 110048

Phone: +91-11-40407700
Email: headoffice@pradan.net

Ranchi office:

Plot No – 437/A, Road No. 05
Near Gate No. 6 P. O. Ashok Nagar,
Ranchi, Jharkhand, 834 002

Phone: 0651-2244116, 2241117
Email: ranchi@pradan.net

Geographical Presence: Dumka, Godda, Deoghar, Ranchi, West Singhbhum, East Singhbhum, Koderma, Gumla, Lohardaga, Hazaribagh, Khunti, Bokaro

Areas Of Operations: Livelihood - SHG formation, Natural Resource Management, Agriculture, Forest Based, Livestock Rearing, Microenterprise promotion

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