In the austere regions of rural Rajasthan in the Thar Desert, Urmul Group of organizations, anchored by Urmul Rural Health Research & Development Trust (Urmul Trust) have been innovating models for inducing community-driven socio-developmental changes. Urmul Trust started grassroots work in 1984 with an initial focus on health care, and on disaster mitigation while responding to the worst drought of the last century in 1987-88.

Urmul has a rich institutional legacy working in the education space. We collaborated with the Government of Rajasthan in 1988 and took over the management of dysfunctional government schools while establishing hundreds of new ones in the entire western Rajasthan. These schools functioned as models resulting in enrolment improving significantly. Over 12,000 students received quality primary education through these schools. Between 1993-2000 Urmul implemented the state-level Lok Jumbish project under which comprehensive work was undertaken for primary and middle-level education system revival.

To promote girl’s education and provide an opportunity to adolescent girls, who had never been to any school or had dropped out, Urmul designed and implemented, Girls’ Education Residential camps for over 15 years. Over 70,000 girls received primary education and as much as 45% of these girls rejoined the formal schooling system. Urmul is the founding and active member of the international alliance against Child Marriage, ‘Girls Not Brides’, and chairs its Rajasthan chapter. It is also a member of several national and state-level policy planning committees around education and girl child.