Adharshila

Adharshila works for education and livelihoods in forest fringe villages adjoining the Kuno national park in district Sheopur, Madhya Pradesh. Its current initiatives span 40 villages in 9 panchayats and benefit people. Through the flagship Adharshila School (est. 2005), it has graduated first generation learners from Adivasi, Dalit and OBC families. These youth form the next generation of leadership in these villages, working for holistic development of the region. At present, Adharshila is a K+12 school with 535 students, nearly 45% of which are girls. Around 40% of its teaching staff includes young women and men who graduated from this very school. Adharshila provides education support to 40 government primary schools in the Vijaypur aspirational block. It focuses on sports, joyful reading, digital education, school infrastructure improvement, and child health. Our students, especially girls, have excelled in sports and academic activities at the district level, and recently even at the State level in MP. The livelihoods vertical of Adharsila supports small and marginal farming households with climate-resilient farming techniques, livestock, poultry, and a range of local non-farm livelihoods (including a new initiative for women-led nature-based tourism). Adharshila preserves, documents, and promotes the indigenous knowledge and cultural heritage of the Sahariya Adivasi community through documentation, story-telling, and design, artisanal and architectural initiatives. Through these initiatives spanning more than 20 years, it aims to create a robust sense of self-confidence, self-awareness and self-sufficiency in this severely marginalised and vulnerable community.