Mitraniketan
Padma Shri. K. Viswanathan founded Mitraniketan after his studies in Shantiniketan and work experiences in Sevagram. Educational and community development ideas of Tagore and Gandhi have influenced Shri. Viswanathan to initiate Mitraniketan in 1956. Over the last 70 years Mitraniketan has developed in the form of a rural institute with facilities for education, training and other development activities.
Mitraniketan functions are based on the Gandhian principles focusing on community based education and development leading to individual empowerment, self-sufficiency at the household level agriculture production, utilization of local resources for income generation, and development & transfer of appropriate technology. Mitraniketan promotes traditional crafts in the field of pottery, silk weaving, coir, bamboo & reed craft and khadi. The organisation contributed to the total literacy achievement of the state through its literacy programs in Vellanad Block and many tribal villages in Thiruvananthapuram district.
Mitraniketan pioneered in promoting village cooperatives (farmers cooperatives, khadi cooperatives and bamboo cooperatives), and appropriate technologies like bio-gas, low cost sanitation, farming technologies, water harvesting. Similarly the organisation has contributed its might, in creating rural employment in farm and non-farm sector on a large scale.
An average of 5000 people including children, youth, women and farmers benefit from various activities of Mitraniketan every year. In addition, a large number of visitors from India and abroad, utilize the facilities of Mitraniketan for exposure visits, voluntary work experiences, studies and research.
Over the years it has grown to cover 50 acres of land housing a residential school for tribal children, Mitraniketan People´s College, Krishi Vigyan Kendra (Farm Science Centre of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi), Rural Technology Centre, Training cum Production Centers (TPCs), bakery, fruit processing centre, pottery and coconut fibre activities, which aim to add value.
The guiding model for the activities at Mitraniketan is, ‘Community Centered Education in an Education Centered Community and Education Centered Community in a Community Centered Education.’ Since its inception, Mitraniketan has been engaged in rural development activities. It strives to integrate formal and non formal education in its activities and follows a need based and life oriented concept. Its work has had powerful impacts over the decades, and today Mitraniketan’s work in supporting community development and individual empowerment is a model to other NGOs around the world.
Through its activities Mitraniketan has been working to achieve total development of individual, family and community through a well integrated education system. Starting with its activities of providing supplementary education programs for school going children of neighboring villages, today it resembles a rural university catering to the education and training needs of not only rural/ tribal children but has expanded to rural youth, house wives, small and marginal farmers, rural artisans, and NGO functionaries belonging to different parts of Kerala. “In today’s world of transition, we must examine how we approach the concept of development and re-orient our approach and methods in such a way as to put humaneness back into the equation. Our primary task in this re-orientation is the enablement of people; development will come about, only when individuals as a part of family and community are reminded of their own power in determining the circumstances of their own lives.”
Education of children, particularly those from socially and economically disadvantaged tribal backgrounds, is Mitraniketan’s primary focus, as those children will in turn serve and support their families and their communities. Mitraniketan’s core educational principle is that rural communities and society as a whole can best be promoted through the total development of individuals and all of Mitraniketan’s programs seek to support this vision.
Since June 2023, Mitraniketan has been provided special consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council.
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