WHO ARE WE?

 

       Friends of Rural Development (Charitable Society) is a voluntary organization, registered in the year 2007, working towards the empowerment of under-privileged sections of the society with special attention towards women and children. It is run by Col. (Retd.) Sudarshan Singh Chaudhari along with his wife, and co-founder, Mrs. SushmaChaudhari. Friends of Rural Development works towards developing a society where people are empowered without any restrictions or constraints.

 

Our Roots

 

          Friends of Rural Development pursues Late Shri Raghunath Singh Chaudhari’s (father of Col. S.S. Chaudhari) dream of making good quality education available toall. Shri R.S. Chaudhari himself was a very reputed educationist in Mumbai, who spent his later years in developing the backward areas of the Garhwal region teaching students and adults. 

 

Where are we: Our Location

 

        FORD is located near Dehradun (Uttarakhand) in a small village Called Ramgarh, It is to the North of Shivalik Ranges, nestled against the natural, beautiful and picturesque backdrop of Himalayan mountains.

 

       The villages around Ramgarh are typical Indian villages; lacking the basic amenities like health and hygiene, toilets, good schools, motivated teachers and nutritious food. A large number of families keep slogging day and night to make two ends meet. Male children are still considered to be a helping hand at farm and the female child a curse. The villagers still follow the age old techniques of cooking, farming and animal husbandry, which take most of their valuable time and energy. All this has resulted in poverty which further precipitates into the lack of motivation to progress further. There is an urgent requirement to do something concrete for them. Something which should start showing results immediately. Question is what?

 

Our Vision

         The answer to the above question lies in Empowerment and people can only be empowered if they are Educated. The vision that drives us is to address the disparity in society by strengthening the underprivileged youth and women, from the economically weaker sections of society, by using formal and informal (Vocational) education as means and to unleash that dormant potential that resides in every individual.
Come and see it for yourself !

 

Mission

          We, at Friends of Rural Development,aim at providing the youth and women in the Low to Moderate Income groups in rural Indiawith a comprehensive formal and informal education program. Exposure to this program will help the youth and women in realising their full potential and will empower them to face the challenges life throws at them and will also help them escalate the ladders of success. We aim at tapping the pool of talent, present in the rural parts of India and that lies hidden from the eyes of the world and to provide a conducive environment which will help in harnessing their latent potential and giving to the world honest, hard working, self respecting and capable youth armed with qualities like self esteem and self confidence.

 

Our Philosophy.

 

        The philosophy is to tap the talented young children from the disadvantaged population of rural areas and provide the right atmosphere to sharpen their latent potential to the best, so that they transform in to honest, hardworking, self respecting, capable youth, armed  with qualities like self-esteem, self- confidence, honesty and belief in themselves.

 

Our Approach

 

        We, at Friends of Rural Development, are guided by a common philosophy that to unearth the hidden talent in people, they need to be educated and hence, be empowered. We believe that education transcends the boundaries of classrooms and textbooks and also the boundary created by society, that is, the boundary dividing the privileged from the under privileged. We believe that the under privileged, too, are a pool of talent just that this pool hasn’t been identified yet.

 

Our Objective.

 

 Our objectives are:-

(a)     Provide formal education to the children from economically weaker section of the society. 

(b)     Prepare children for admission to the Navodaya Vidyalayas, Sainik Schools, Military Schools and RIMC (Rastriya Indian Military Academy).

(c)     Impart job oriented computer literacy amongst the local youth.  

(d)     Provide Vocational training to the school dropout teens from the disadvantaged section of the society and help them to get back to the main

stream. 

(e)     Provide vocational training to the women so that they help in supplementing the family earnings.