 In 1990, when Dr. Dharam Anand, Sakshi’s founder (above centre), returned to India after working abroad for many years in the area of public health, he found that millions of displaced farmers and rural poor had migrated to urban areas like Delhi in search of better opportunities and were living in abject poverty in unauthorized settlements which lacked basic facilities like water, sanitation, electricity, shelter etc.
Uneducated and poor, they scraped an existence as manual labor. Their children grew up malnourished and sickly and without education, followed in their parents' footsteps. It was a heart-breaking situation.
Uniquely placed to help by virtue of his global experience in public health and education, Dr. Anand founded Sakshi to help these forgotten and marginalized children and communities.
Health & Hygiene
 In 1993, Sakshi began work in the area of Health & Hygiene wherein, supported by the United Nations and World Health Organization, Sakshi began to build toilets at MCD schools in the slums and educate children and communities about Preventive Medicine and Hygiene.
This was critical to reducing the incidence of diseases and water-borne epidemics that frequently afflicted these settlements and resulted in high rates of child, maternal and overall mortality.
Primary Education
 Working in the MCD schools, Sakshi staff noticed the high drop-out rate of slum children. Sakshi believes that education is vital for the development of a child, enlarging her vision of the world and herself, instilling curiosity, awareness, values and a belief and ability to chart her own destiny.
Thus, supported by Government agencies, Sakshi began work in the area of Elementary Education, running Early Education Centers to care for the health and education of pre-school children and Non-Formal Education Centers and Remedial Classes to track down, motivate and equip drop-outs to rejoin the mainstream.
Vocational Training and Full Empowerment
  In 2005, Mr. Satish Tandon (right), Dr. Anand's family member and a successful CEO of a multinational corporation, who had assisted Dr. Anand's efforts from the start, assumed leadership of Sakshi. He realized that though health and elementary education are necessary first steps in the upliftment and development of slum children, something further is needed to make them employable and able to earn a regular and decent livelihood.
Mr. Tandon then initiated the vital Vocational Training project which today equips low-literate youth with marketable skills like computer training, beauty culture, proficiency in English etc that allows them to find jobs which double their previous combined family income and have growth potential, thus empowering them to break the Cycle of Poverty for themselves, their families and their future generations.
Supporting the Health and Education projects over the years was our growing work in Community Development: building awareness in slums about hygiene, the importance of education, girl child upliftment and women's empowerment.
Today
 Sakshi is helmed ably by Dr. Mridula Anand Tandon (right), Dr. Anand's daughter, a medical professional and a successful business person in her own right, who has also been an integral part of Sakshi since the beginning.
Sakshi’s Mission is to empower slum children and communities to break the vicious Cycle of Urban Poverty by providing them access to health, education and community development services and thus a comprehensive road from poverty to prosperity.
Our goals are:
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To open the doors of Primary Education for “unreached children” without access to it.
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To integrate children who are marginalized by poverty and lack of education into mainstream society.
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To provide low-literate or illiterate youth with the power to earn a regular and decent livelihood.
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To provide Health & Hygiene Services to slum children and communities.
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To provide Developmental Services to slum communities, primarily by empowering women and the marginalized, and building awareness about the importance of education and upliftment of the girl child.
Our Principles are:
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Empowerment: Through health, education and community development services, we enable the poorest of poor especially children, youth and women to become empowered to help themselves, as opposed to being charity cases.
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“All-Round Care”: We provide for a healthy mind, body and soul. From medical attention to education to compassionate social workers and teachers who serve as guides & mentors.
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“Joyful Learning”: We teach enjoyably via role play, songs, essays etc for better retention, motivation & to ingrain a joyful work ethic in the children
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Sustainability: We start a new project only when we have resources to see it through.
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Commitment: in Employees, Partners, Patrons. We go wherever we are needed. We do whatever is needed.
We are an organization of people who want to give back. Sakshi's Executives are successful professionals in their own fields and work pro bono for Sakshi (besides donating to it themselves). All our good-to-do work like this website and our annual brochures is done by volunteers. Thus, Sakshi is able to spend greater than 95% of the funding it receives directly on its projects for the children and communities building schools and toilets, buying books and medicines etc.
Over the last two decades, Sakshi executives' combined expertise in medicine, education and management, dedication to giving back to the less fortunate and ability to spark the same passion in others and have them sign up to the cause, has led Sakshi to scale ever greater heights.
Through the leadership of Sakshi's executives and the dedication of its project staff, Sakshi has...
...thrived over 18 years
...to become a full-spectrum grassroots NGO
...developing and implementing projects in Health, Education and Community Development
...running 120 centres in destitute areas
...and partnering with organizations like the United Nations, Government of India, WHO etc
...to empower hundreds of thousands of needy children and their families to break the Cycle of Poverty once and for all.
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