About Us

About Us

92% of India’s working population is part of the unorganized sector, with over 60% engaged in agriculture – indicative of widespread vulnerability to unemployment and poor economic security. Further, 65% of prime-aged women in rural India lack basic primary school education, affecting their and their children’s life chances.

SOACH, a registered NGO, supports the socio-economically disadvantaged, particularly women and children from rural India, acquire education, skills and a sustainable vocation. Through participatory dialogues and discussions, SOACH facilitates conscientious communities that can actively lead, shape and take responsibility for their own change and development.

At SOACH we believe that processes of social development need to become spaces of learning and enabling to be truly empowering. While today, development is measured through an economic growth paradigm, it is only when we embrace social and cultural inclusion, as well as, equitable, sustainable practices that true human development can be achieved.

SOACH is a registered charitable NGO that engages in critical learning & developmental initiatives for the less privileged – exploring sustainable options to livelihoods through the arts, crafts & humanities.

Towards this end SOACH engages in knowledge building, skill development and participatory community action programs.

SOACH focuses on creative and critical learning, aimed at raising the aspirations, achievements and life chances of socio-economically vulnerable and geographically marginalized communities – helping them develop the skills they need to fulfil their potential in school, the workplace and the wider society

Creative and critical learning empowers people to imagine how their world can be different and gives them the confidence and motivation to make positive change happen. It helps them to engage with their environment, seek knowledge and achieve.

At SOACH we believe that growth and development are most effective when a community is actively involved in leading, shaping and taking responsibility for their own learning and empowerment. SOACH thus draws on a Participatory Development Paradigm, involving the community in their own change and development.

While seeking to understand issues that concern the community from their perspective SOACH works towards raising the critical consciousness of the community through dialogues, discussions and capacity building initiatives.

At SOACH we believe that processes of social development need to become spaces of learning and enabling to be truly empowering.

For a people and its nation to enjoy peace and development, accessibility to skills, knowledge and employment are a must, as are efforts towards inclusion of those at the bottom of the pyramid.

A vast number of children, especially girls, still drop out of formal schooling after eight standard.

If by then, they were to have learnt a vocational skill and have functionally good communication (both verbal and written) and counting abilities, they can chart out a living while continuing to learn anytime in life, as opportunity permits.

SOACH thus focuses on integrated development, encouraging both, creative and critical abilities.

Beneficiaries 

  • The rural and the geographically marginalized (Adivasi and nomadic communities)
  • Primary municipal schools
  • Anganwadis (village pre‐primary child care centers)
  • Urban indigent communities
  • Institutions for the physically challenged

Methodology

  • Active, Experiential, Participatory

Belief

  • Learning is a process of living and growing Hence, should be fun, meaningful and empowering

Emphasis on 

  • Creative Skills, Communication and Counting

Learning Goals

  • Basic Literacy, Numeracy & Creative thinking,
  • Vocational & Life Sustaining Skills,
  • Concern for Environmental & Sustainable Issues,
  • Values of Social & Global Concerns,

Schools

  • Municipal Primary School no. 1 & 2, Gandhinagar.
  • Primary Village Municipal Schools in: Sonipur, Pindarda, Alluva & Amrapur Villages

Basti’s & Village Communities

  • Rabari Vado, Memnagar, Ahmedabad.
  • Sonipur, Rupal, Pindarda, Alluva, Amrapur in Gujarat
  • Nagjhalli Village, Boisar District in Maharashtra.

Institutions for the Differently Able

  • Andh Kanya Prakash Gruh, Ahmedabad
  • Samarpan Mukh Badir Shishu Vidya Mandir, (School for the Deaf & Mute), Gandhinagar

School Teachers Training Programs

  • for Gandhinagar & Dahod Taluka

Children from Adivasi Communities

  • under the National KGBV Program