Localising Global Goals

Who We Are

EduCARE India is a grassroots NGO working in community-led sustainable development since 1994, with roots across five Indian states. When the world adopted the Sustainable Development Goals ↗, we already had two decades of practice.

Our Vision and Beliefs

One should be a capable, confident, and responsible global citizen.

We envision a world where every person has the opportunity and capacity to direct social, environmental, and economic resources toward creating sustainable outcomes for themselves, their communities, and the natural environments that we share.

We believe that:

• Communities can develop from within. The capacity is already there; awareness through education is what awakens it.
• Real impact takes creativity. Old problems don't yield to old approaches; one can lead by example and build new solutions that inspire others to join.
• Change begins with people helping people. Passion, initiative, and action make a lasting impact; money is not the only agent for change.
• Women and youth can lead. Through engagement and role-modeling, women and youth become the drivers of development that sustains itself.

How We Work

Every community already has its protagonists: self-help groups, health workers, masons, youth, women, and retirees with time and talent to spare. We show them what that talent could become, and bring what it takes to get there: the training and certifications, the guidance, the connections beyond the village.

On the ground, that means our volunteers and interns working inside the community: running training sessions, participating in the self-help group meetings, launching new projects and building programs together with the people who'll own them. Women from the savings collectives certify as disaster responders. Masons learn earthquake-safe construction, and every house they build after that is safer. A few dozen programs of more than twenty years each.

Every program is built to be handed over.

Success, for us, is a community that no longer needs us.

What We Do

Our work runs through four pillars: Safety, Health, Environment, and Empowerment. Together they cover what a community needs to develop on its own terms; each one is carried out by an institution we've built for it.

Safety. Disaster preparedness in a Himalayan district that knows earthquakes, landslides, and flash floods. Village volunteers certified as first responders, and masons trained in earthquake-safe construction.

Health. Community health where the state's reach thins out: elder care that keeps people in their own homes, mothers' and children's health, clean water and sanitation.

Environment. Kitchen gardens, botanical gardens, watershed protection, and ecological restoration, livelihoods that regenerate the land instead of depleting it.

Empowerment. Women's micro-enterprise, financial literacy, youth skills, and after-school centres, the pillar that powers the other three.

What works becomes the model for the next region. Kangra is the proving ground; the roots are already down in five Indian states.

Work with Us

There are three doors in.

Come as an intern or volunteer. GlobalPEACE placements bring students and graduates from around the world to live and work inside the community, running programs, launching projects, learning development by doing it. Placements are paid for by the interns themselves, and that's by design: your contribution funds the programs you'll work on, with 30% ring-fenced for local student scholarships. Remote internship/volunteering exists too.

Come as a professional. Young professionals, researchers, and visiting scholars take on longer engagements: program design, applied research, training delivery.

Come as a partner. We work with government agencies, universities, and CSR programs that want grassroots reach for their initiatives.

The Full Story

This page is the short version.

Three decades of programs, frameworks, publications, and institutional history live on our full site ↗, in full detail.