Our Story

BEGAN WITH A REALIZATION IN 2012

Mrida’s founder Priya Nadkarni was part of the team for PRADAN’s  grassroots program for the tribal youth in Mandla, Madhya Pradesh. While implementing the programs, she realized that standardized education for such youths (from rural impoverished families) is actually crippling because it took away their basic ability to observe and be aware of their environment, their minds, and their bodies.

To add to this the children and youth from this region were struggling with the problem of poor nutrition. Priya realized the intensity of the malnutrition problem while working with the rural girls on grassroots program.

90% of those attending the grassroots program were anaemic. She further observed while conducting skills training program for over 1000 youth, they would return from their city-based jobs within a few months. They also displayed inability to learn on the job and an unwillingness to live in the city. Priya then started to analyze the underlying factors for such behavior among the youth. They realized that these youth never really stood a chance, since they were so poorly educated and ill-equipped to handle the urban life. The REALIZATION of a need to work in a fundamental way on education from a young age for the children from impoverished families was thus sown in their minds.

The Better India - a digital publication covered Priya Nadkarni's journey to start Mrida

What Priya experienced in her grassroots-led development work  moved her at many levels. For her, the hollowness of the standardized education system that places knowledge above experience was a deterrent to progress. She felt, that to survive in such a system and to achieve excellence would be possible only through a complete understanding and knowledge of one’s true self. Convinced that many of the answers to her questions lay in India’s spiritual heritage, they set out to find the education pathway to raise excellent human beings by establishing Mrida Education and Welfare Society in 2016.

WHY WE CHOSE THE MAHAKAUSHAL REGION?

The Mahakaushal region in Madhya Pradesh, India comprises three of the most backward and tribal populated districts in India. Some of the issues that affect the children and their education in this region are:

  1. high rate of migration,
  2. high rate of school dropouts due to migration, and
  3. high rate of malnutrition. 

As per the Annual Health Survey conducted (2010-11), in Mandla, 56.5 per cent children are underweight, while 47.3 percent and 29.6 percent are suffering from stunting and wasting (decreased fat mass), respectively. Most of the farmer families in the region possess small landholdings and earn low produce from the farmlands due to inadequate irrigation facilities, and one crop farming practice. Thus, the tribal families live in abject poverty due to lack of alternative livelihood opportunities in the region. 

Get to know about Mrida’s grassroots livelihood programs helping to eradicate poverty in the region. 

CULTURAL CONTEXT OF THE TRIBAL COMMUNITIES

Traditionally, the Gond and Baiga tribes of the Mahakaushal region are accustomed to a high energy, active life style. Football is a game that many have already been playing for several generations without any kind of structured support or coaching. The game was introduced in the region by the British soldiers, similar to the origin of football in West Bengal in mid-nineteenth century when the game was introduced by British soldiers. Some of the British leaders identified the local talent in Bengal and took the game forward by setting up Mohun Bagan Athletic Club in 1889. It is interesting to note that these tribes were smart and skilled enough to even defeat the Mughals and the British under the leadership of the powerful Gond Kings, who could never capture this region. So historically these tribes have proved themselves with little hand holding or support.

Similarly, the tribal children have a good sense of geometry since they assist their families in building houses and doing daily work. They are able to solve contextually relevant problems through their field-level knowledge, building products and solutions with the locally available resources that address the core problems in their lives.

Keeping the cultural context in mind and with our experience of working  for more than 10 years in the Mahakaushal region, we have developed the sports and technology program pathways for our school children. All of Mrida’s grassroots programs aspire to revive the community’s inherent capabilities to build skills in children, and youth for education and sports excellence and support agrarian families to earn from sustainable livelihood in an effort to eradicate poverty from the region.

Founder’s Talk

Priya shares her experiences of building a charity organization from ground up on LinkedIn.
Read it here.

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