The Founders

PRERANA founders were a group of like minded persons who had completed their Master’s Degree in Social Work from then Delhi School of Social work, University of Delhi, Delhi (India). Most of the founding members belonged to Delhi and had varied family backgrounds of government servants, professionals and businessmen. Some of the members have earned higher qualifications including doctorate degree at later stages of their career. Currently, most of the founder and members of current Executive Board are holding senior professional positions with organizations like UNIFEF, Dr. Schroffs Charitable Trust,( under CSR component of Eicher), Central University and international donor agencies/projects.

PRERANA founders and members of the Executive Board have a strong belief in voluntarism for a social cause and have continued to practice the same with a strong sense of commitment. Till date they have continued to giver their quality time to various projects, assignments and activities of PRERANA – on a regular basis as well as part time basis.

PRERANA owes its origin to the urge of young professionals who wished to try out and assess applicability of principles of professional social work in Indian conditions. So much was the idealism and passion, that for a considerable period, the Organization did not accept grants as a matter of choice in order to avoid strings often attached with grants, which limits people’s choices and preferences for their own development; and continued its activities through community and external voluntary participation and contributions. With successful experimentation of professional social work, the group subsequently gained confidence and started sharing its professional expertise with other like minded NGOs which they continue to do so till date. Over a period of time, the group has brought and shared experiences from other specialized fields such as training, research, IEC material and ICTs and in the programme sectors from elementary and adult education, health, reproductive health and family welfare, HIV/AIDS, livelihood and life skills etc. The priority clients of PRERANA have remained to be children, adolescents and women belonging to marginalized groups and communities.

ABOUT THE ORGANISATION

PRERANA is a non profit voluntary organization working to enable underprivileged/marginalized individuals, groups and communities towards empowerment and self development.
Formed in 1974, PRERANA was formally registered as a society in 1976 with Registrar of Societies, Delhi (under no. S/8276 of 1976).
PRERANA works to create conditions for development where girls, boys, women and men work together to improve their quality of life as well as that of communities through self help and participation.
Prerana is a value driven organization and lays emphasis on programme innovation, learning and sharing of professional approaches, non charity and professional voluntarism.

VISION

A premier organization committed to enhancing the quality of life of individual and groups.

MISSION

PRERANA will collaborate with communities, NGOs, INGO s and Central State government departments/agencies to create conditions for development where girls, boys women and men can work together to improve the quality of life as well as their communities through self help and participation.
The focus areas would be population, health, education and capacity building

CURRENT PROGRAMMES

DISTRICT RESOURCE CENTRE

Under Delhi Government’s project ‘Mission Convergence’ PRERANA has been selected as the District Resource Centre (DRC) for the Central and New Delhi District of Delhi. The project aims at converging various social welfare schemes and serves with the objective of making entitlements reach the poor through a single window system in a hassle free manner.

BETTER LIFE OPTION PROGRAM FOR ADOLESCENT GIRLS

PRERANA’s programme for adolescent s development was started in 1986 and was perhaps amongst the first in the country at that period of time. It began with learning about adolescents, later consolidated, verified and shared with others and has now reached a stage of franchise centres run by alumni’s of the programme with minimum technical and supervisory support of PRERANA
The program at present is being implemented in five semi urban villages in the Badarpur area of New Delhi. Objective of the program is to motivate the adolescents to realize their potential and harness lit, so that they are able to contribute positively and effectively to the family and community.

LEADERSHIP AWARD PROGRAM USING SPORTS

PRERANA in collaboration with NAZ Foundation is running a project title GOAL since 2007. This project innovately expanded the Life Skills program for adolescents to include ‘sports’ as a vehicle for social inclusion and Women’s Empowerment and Leadership.

FAMILY COUNSELLING CENTRE

With assistance from the Delhi Social Welfare Board, PRERANA runs a Family Counselling Centre at Jaitpur. The objective of the programme is to provide counseling, referral and possibly rehabilitative services to women victims and also to others who are affected by family and social problems and disputes.

OTHER ACTIVITIES

PRERANA also undertakes research and evaluation of programs and issues related to adolescent development.PRERANA also has a great experience of developing Resource Training Materila in the form of Training Manuals,Flip books, Posters, Handbooks etc. for other Organisations and Bilaterals.
PRERANA also provides customised training programs and packages for other organisations and acts as a technical resource on adolescent issues and basic program management.

ASSOCIATION WITH SMILE FOUNDATION

With the financial support of Smile Foundation PRERANA implemented a project titled “Addressing the Educational and Health Care needs of out of School adolescents” for drop out children in the six villages of Badarpur. The Project was initiated in the year of 2006 for a period of one year. The objective of the project was basic literacy skill through non formal educational forums for adolescents who have never been to school collaborated with open school through pre bridge and bridge courses in an effort to main stream the drop out and out of school into the education system apart from all these young adolescents were also sensitized on life skill education nutrition and health care needs and linkage with vocational skill training organization/institutes for interested adolescents were established.

In all around 300 students were enrolled and completed the programme.

DEVELOPMENT OF MANUAL AND TRAINING OF TRAINERS

In the year 2007 PRERANA developed a Training manual for SWABHIMAN project. SWABHIMAN project focuses on generating awareness among girl child/young women on various life skill issues through various partner organizations. PRERANA was approached to develop a manual to assist the community health educators and volunteers impart information to young girls. The manual covered the issues of Life Skill, Gender and Reproductive Health. The manual was developed in English and Hindi.

Further to the development of manual Smile Foundation also invited PRERANA to conduct the Training of Trainers. PRERANA team conducted the 5 days training for the partners which focused on general capacity building and developing skills to effectively implementing the manual.

TWIN E LEARNING CENTRE

A Twin e Learning centre, was initiated in the Badarpur area in mid 2007. Objective of the project is to impart employable and marketable skills like spoken and written English and Computer Education to the underprivileged adolescent youth, residing in locations near the Badarpur area, from where the centre operates.

The programme also aims at imparting soft skills like

• Basic management including Retail and Sales Management
• Personality development, Career opportunities and Counseling Team Work and Leadership qualities
• Gender issues
• Reproductive and Sexual Health, HIV/AIDS issues

Case Studies:

Mahipal Verma Mahipal is 20 years of age and has completed his class 12th from Government school. Mahipal is trained under the Smile Twin e-Learning Course curriculum and passed out successfully in Jan.09.

In Mahipal's family there are 3 has members including him. His father suffred from T.B. and he lost him 3 years ago. Now he has his mother and young brother to support. Being the elder in family he faced the burden of supporting his family after his father passed by. Mahipal then got to know the Twin e-Learning Programme which is run near his house. He learnt the 6 months training in which he gained knowledege about Basic Computers, English, Retail and Basic Management, Adolscent Health. Earlier a very shy person he felt the confidence in himself after learning many new things at the centre.

Mahipal currently works with Cafe Coffee Day outlet at Faridabad and is earning Rs.4500 p.m. He says that he interacts with different kind of people throughout day and is enjoying his work. He dreams of growing in his present position and also studying further. He wants his mother to be proud of him and support education of his younger brother.

Nutan, a 22 years old girl of Jaitpur also passed out from Smile Twin e-Learning Centre in February 2009. She stays with her parents. Her father is working in a private company. Nutan has one brother, who is a graduate. Before joining the center, like many of her peers, she did not want to take up a job, because her parents frowned upon it.

After joining this course she started interacting with many other girls her age, who were all focused and had aims and ambitions of being self reliant and independent.

By and by she realized that she too would not like to be dependent on her family for her immediate and personal needs. She got motivated and convinced to look for work and was also able to convince her parents about her aspirations. She has now joined Onida at Mathura Road, in the Customer Care Division. She is earning around Rs. 5000/- per month.