Our organization was established to address the community’s concerns and enhance the opportunities available to them. The society focuses their efforts on three main areas, education of youth, empowerment of women and community development. 

We realize that what the people in this area need is not merely help, but the guidance and support to create opportunities for themselves. We wish to demonstrate that excellence is possible among the poor through good education and skill building; that a sense of self esteem and confidence to learn and progress in life can be built in this manner. We aim to identify children with Academic Potential and nurture it to excellence. By helping to address the community’s concerns and provide solutions, we can serve as an example for the future.

Our community focus involves helping families achieve proper health and sanitation. We want the families to have access to proper toilet facilities and medical care to help them lead a healthy life.  Living in the beautiful Himalayan Mountains, we also want the community the see the importance of conserving nature and recycling. And because many families are without the skills for a good job, we want to help provide them with employment. 

We believe that one of the best ways through which we can strengthen the family is by empowering the women. With our skill training program for women, we’re helping the women develop their skills to help them become income earners in their family. By providing them with an opportunity to earn, they will have a greater confidence and capacity to care for their family. As a result, the family will benefit from an improved quality of life.

While our efforts benefit all people in the community in various ways, our main focus in on the youth in the community. By helping to strengthen the youth in the community, we believe we can help create generations of educated and healthy families.

Our effort is focused on a limited number of children, with the desire and potential to excel in school and later go on for higher education. It is an effort to provide at least these few underprivileged kids a healthy learning environment, no different from that available at many good schools in India. This can be achieved by helping to sponsor the children’s education at good schools and provide them with after school coaching and support to strengthen their learning and skills. Confidence in the handling of English as a language is also one of our goals.

Most of the parents in this community are barely literate. None of them, even the wealthy few in the village, have had the advantage of a good education. They have therefore little idea of what education means and what it can do to change lives. Sadly, few parents are involved with the lives of their children. In this scenario, we are attempting to provide the example and mentorshipthat educated parents of successful children provide their children.

To begin with, we need to give the children a sense of self – esteem and confidence to learn and excel. They need to realize that poverty is nothing to be ashamed of and that they should respect and honor the cultureand parentage that they come from. By helping them develop their inner talents and build confidence in their self, we aim to help them overcome such barriers and reach their potential.

Our commitment to our children is beyond the secondary school level. We aim to help the children discover their talents and provide opportunities for college education and work experience. These incentives serve as opportunities for the children to acquire knowledge and professional skill to help them build confidence for their future. Rarely does someone think of these children becoming leading professionals in the global market place. It is our aim to help the children get there.

While the education that we impart is the focus, it is also necessary to help youth develop a positive attitude to life. They should realize that there is an honest way to live, work and prosper. The effort is to prepare children for a moral life, to help them learn to observe the values of a human and rise above the compulsions of the animal instinct in man. We want to help the children cultivate the skills of empathy for others and the instinct to share. The children are taught about the essentials of honesty, respect, dealing with adversity, proper conduct and how to become good leaders.

In January of 2008, Yuva Shakti began a new education scheme called Bus Them to Purkal. The programme takes very poor children from remote villages with no access to basic education, and literally buses them to Purkal to join our learning centre. The first group is composed of 23 students, who spend their day from 9.30am to 5pm with our teacher/mentors learning the foundations of English, Mathematics, Hindi and Science in a student-centred and interactive way. The focus of this programme is on the girl-child, who is often left behind when it comes to education and seen as a second-class citizen.

We hope that the Society’s initiative will serve as an example for the community to improve the quality of care and mental stimulation that children and youth in general receive in their early years.

Over time, we hope that our efforts will change the ever present feeling of deprivation, social injustice and helplessness that prevails. Then perhaps, the community would become less dependent on the ‘kindnesses' of politicians and influential members of the community, and become empowered to access their own resources.

A good education and then, hopefully, a steady source of income, would provide dignity and a change in the conditions of life; altering standards of nutrition, hygiene, health management, shelter, opportunity and social treatment.