Professional Assistance For Development Action (PRADAN)

Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN) was created in 1983 by two young professionals, Deep Joshi and Vijay Mahajan, who were convinced that even the stubborn, endemic poverty of rural India can be solved. It works to reduce poverty; changing lives and creating choices for the poorest communities in rural India.

Main areas of activities are:

• Women Empowerment: PRADAN’s primary focus is organizing women collectives and Self Help Groups as they provide strength to deal with inequities in society. Their intervention with these collectives is around gender justice, citizenship engagement with governance structures and public systems and negotiating with the external world like markets.
• Create Sustainable Livelihoods: It works with marginalized communities to create food security and works in areas of agriculture, horticulture, forest based livelihoods, livestock and micro-enterprises. These include development of land, creation of irrigation systems, establishing multiple cropping systems, livestock-based livelihoods, micro-enterprises, access to fair market and credit, ownership of land and alternate employment opportunities like broiler farming, goat rearing, tasar rearing, lac cultivation, mulberry sericulture and fish rearing.
• Rebuild local Governance and service institutions for citizens especially Women: Working with collectives to strengthen governance and institutions to demand and support, creation and availability of basic services like road, health, education, water, hygiene and sanitation. Women’s engagement in electoral process, being members in standing committees, challenging retrogressive social norms and joint preparation of citizen reports with PRI are some focus areas.
• Create enabling Environment in the grassroots: It also works towards influencing State apparatus for pro-poor action, recommending pro-poor policies, legislations which create space for women, collectives, CBO, marginalized, attracting private players and philanthropists to contribute to rural communities, creating an environment conducive for partnership between stakeholders and forming coalition between various communities to create a larger eco system and larger social impact.

Basically, PRADAN’s primary focus is to help people in marginalized communities develop their own skills and initiatives, instead of delivering services or solutions to them by aiming for a holistic and positive change in their social, psychological and economic condition so they can take total charge of their lives and engage with the world around them.