About

In the early 1990s, as India embraced economic liberalisation, our founder, Sanjoy Ghose, recognised that while the country was progressing rapidly, millions living in remote rural communities remained absent from the conversations shaping that progress. Those at the margins experienced poverty, discrimination and exclusion, yet their realities rarely informed public discourse or policy. Development was happening around them, but not with them.

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Having spent years working closely with rural communities, Sanjoy believed that people experiencing exclusion possessed the deepest understanding of the challenges affecting their lives. What they lacked were opportunities to participate in decisions and narratives that shaped their futures. This conviction led him to establish Charkha in 1994.

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What distinguished Charkha from the outset was its belief that communication could be a catalyst for leadership and wellbeing. Rather than speaking for communities, Charkha focused on creating spaces where the young people specially young girls, women, become equipped with development communication tools such as writing, photography, storytelling, puppetry, videog to analyse, document and articulate their own realities. We recognised that when people are consistently excluded from public discourse, it undermines not only their visibility but also their sense of agency, dignity and belonging.

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Over the past three decades, this philosophy has evolved into a youth-centred leadership model. Today, Charkha works with adolescent girls, young people and grassroots social workers in some of India's most remote regions, integrating gender, leadership and communication to strengthen their ability to challenge inequality and influence change. While our programmes have evolved, our founding belief remains unchanged: lasting wellbeing begins when communities are recognised as leaders of their own development rather than passive recipients of it.