Educators Empowering Communities
for Inclusive Growth
VISION
A just and humane society that ensures equal opportunities for quality of life to every citizen of India through relevant and quality education to the most marginalised.
MISSION
To create relevant opportunities for the most marginalized sections of society, by engaging with and building the capacity of civil society actors, such that it leads to Educated, Egalitarian and Empowered communities.
VALUES
Hope | Respect | Commitment | Accountability | Transparency
STRATEGIES
Empowering Communities:
Mobilising marginalised sections of society to raise awareness and self-confidence to unleash the potential within them.
Creating Opportunities:
Developing the capacities of local organisations to promote feasible, affordable and sustainable solutions thus increasing opportunities for them and future generations.
Strengthening Civil Society:
Mobilising the weaker sections of society to raise awareness of their rights and to claim their entitlements.
Beginnings
Certain basic operating principles that the Trust has adhered to over
the years are:
Programmes will reach the very poor and vulnerable sections of society – the last 20%
Participation of the local community will be harnessed making the interventions sustainable
Will not directly implement projects but through credible, local, implementing partners, thereby enhancing their capacity
Keeping the above principles in mind, our projects were implemented in Central India, where the need was great. Development Focus did not want to thinly spread all over the country but have a clear geographic focus. We worked only in very poor districts of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa till 2017, mainly focusing on Tribal and Dalit communities. As years went by, the policies of governments changed both in India and donor countries. The partnership with Edukans Foundation came to an end in 2016 after 10 years of fruitful work.
Development Focus had to look for other sources of support. Presently, our main support is from the Corporate sector through their Social Responsibility outreach. A couple of foreign donors also support our programmes. We have included poor districts of North Karnataka and North East India in our geographic coverage. The programme focus has also widened, still keeping education from a broad perspective as the theme.
We are still a small organisation attempting to do great things for the transformation of communities in poor and vulnerable communities, especially the children and youth among them.