Realising the socio economically deprived has been the core agenda of governance and the civil society worldwide due to their old age suffering from drudgery, socio economic deprivation, slavery and inequality in access to the five capitals i.e. human capital, physical capital, financial capital, natural resource capital and the most important of them being the social capital. The identified classes in India are Tribal, Dalit, Women and other Excluded communities who have been traditionally victims of severe discrimination historically despite the constitutional declaration that protects citizen’s equal right regardless of their race, caste, and religion. They have always been deprived of their constitutional rights and consequently fall victims to severe social and economic exclusion and discrimination.
Ekta Foundation Trust is a sister organization of Ekta Parishad. Ekta Foundation Trust (EFT) was established in the year 2001. Ekta Foundation Trust was registered under the public charitable Trust in 2001. EFT is a federation of community-based organizations formed by marginalized and landless people working in seven states of India. EFT is a Civil Society Organization (CSO) solely devoted as an implementing agency for EP’s national level operations and projects. EFT is working for the land and livelihood rights of India’s most marginalized communities (Tribals, Dalits, Nomadic communities, Agricultural labourers, small and marginal farmers, etc.).
Ekta Foundation was set up with a motto to empower and change the life style of those who have been neglected, struggling, exploited and down trodden masses by strengthening their community based organizations and developing leadership skills among them. As a dynamic organization, in 2008, the emphasis was to create more space and opportunities for the women participating in the programs as leaders.
To boost up the core activities and to ensure more women participation, EFT has also associated with Ekta Mahila Manch (Women’s Forum) and Ekta Kala Manch (Cultural Forum), which is a platform for promoting parallel organizational activities in support of ongoing campaign. The EFT is working actively since from the year 2004 through various implementing projects.
EFT is currently working with women of rural and marginalized community educating and empowering them with their project which is named as Internet Saathi Program. Internet Saathis is a woman from villages who are trained on using the internet and are made equipped with data enabled devices. These women are work as trainers, to help other women in their village to get started on their internet journey and gets benefit from it. This concept has increased Internet Saathis confidence and their passion for positive change which inspired the Google and Tata trust- to work on a model facilitating digital based livelihood opportunities for the Internet Saathis along with digital literacy to enable them to continue their positive impact on their community.