Pratham

Pratham was created in 1994 to provide pre-school education to underprivileged children in the city of Mumbai. Madhav Chavan and Farida Lambay co-founded the organization with support from UNICEF and the Mumbai Municipal Corporation. Together, they built a grassroots team around a simple mission: “every child in school and learning well.” Today, Pratham is India’s largest non-governmental organization in education, working in 20 states across India, reaching over 1.5 million children annually.

Through a wide selection of programs and services aimed at addressing educational disparity for underserved populations, Pratham’s strategy is to design and demonstrate low-cost pedagogical models that can be easily integrated by teachers and rapidly expanded to state and national level to reach a large segment of India’s 100 million illiterate children. While our programs and delivery methods continue to evolve, one thing has never changed—our commitment to improving the quality of education for all.

Pratham USA is a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to building awareness and raising resources for the work undertaken in India. Pratham USA has chapters in 14 US cities, with supporters representing a range of individuals and organizations that share a strong personal commitment to improving child literacy.