Mitra Foundation was born out of an unexpected tragic event that happened in amongst the group of founders. We were all neighbours in a single Apartment with 12 families, a kind of extended family. Suddenly in Mar 2013, we had lost one amongst us, the youngest of the fathers to a sudden onset of cancer.  This had left a deep impact on us and we wanted to do start something in his memory and to channelize our emotions. This led to us wanting to start the ‘Jeevan Shakti’ Initiative, through which we work with families of terminally ill/passed away cancer patients to help the family build the ‘strength to live’ on.

As we worked to find the appropriate structure under which to get this going, we looked to see this can be started under an existing entity. After some study, we came to the conclusion that most entities are started with a specific/directed objective and would be difficult to add something like Jeevan Shakti into it.  We realized  there would be others, interested in starting a new initiative  triggered by various happenings, would face the same dilemma.

To address the need we had, and to cover for the learning we have, we went ahead with setting Mitra Foundation as a registered trust with a broad charter, and provision to have multiple targeted projects under it.

The primary goal is to:

• Facilitate the setting up multiple charitable initiative, each with a definite purpose, driven by a set of passionate individuals, and working with their independent focus objectives, with overlap in the stream of activities covered like educational support, vocational training, livelihood support, medical assistance, health & hygiene, environment, etc.
• We currently have the following 2 initiatives:
  • Jeevan Shakti:
    • This initiative is set up  to work with families of patients who are terminally ill specifically with Cancer. Especially, if the patient is the breadwinner of the family. These families usually require support for their kids’ education, sustenance in the initial days of the breadwinner passing away, enabling the families to be able to get to a regular livelihood support.

     

  • LBS Jana Sahayog:
    •  This is the second initiative under Mitra Foundation started to encourage and provide a channel for the different residents of LBS Nagar and surrounding area to share their well being with others in the area who are in need of it. This Fund will focus in areas of Education, Healthcare and other Empowerment initiatives.

As we go through the above , we also hope to be able to

• Share the knowledge and experience across the initiatives to catalyze the impacts of each of the initiatives
  • This requires us to focus on ways and means of having connections across the different initiatives

• Build the learnings in running a formal registered Trust and be available to share the  learnings and experience with other who can benefit from this
  • This will require us to focus on targeted focus on sharing the learnings  through various means like social media, newletters and reports, blogs etc.