Overview

The world is changing continuously which always calls for new development strategies. Development of a society lies in transforming the people and institutions continuously in order to get just benefits and thereby improve their standard of living. This transformation of people and institutions do not take place spontaneously at the same rate with which the change processes take place. This is more appropriate especially with poor and weaker section of the society. Hence this section of people and their institutions need to be constantly updated about the changes which will enable them to be equally competent as the rest of the world. ‘Learning’ is the primary solution for updating oneself. When the poor and marginal community is still struggling for their basic livelihoods, they don’t have time and energy to learn new things. There is a need for someone to provide an enabling environment to facilitate learning among these people. Dhan People Academy provides such enabling environment for learning.

Dhan People Academy (DPA), one of the centers of DHAN Foundation was promoted in December 2003 following a very important lesson drawn from the experience of DHAN Foundation. The lesson is ‘sustainable development can be achieved only through Institutions promoted by the community (Community Based Organisations); the competence (ASK- Attitude, Knowledge and Skill) of leaders and staffs of those institutions are crucial factors in determining their sustainability. Hence creating a right kind of attitude and ienhancing their knowledge and skill through training and education programmes is the first step towards achieving development.

DPA offers a range of training programmes, Certificate Courses and Diploma Programmes and also organises exposure visits in order to suit to the need of people institutions promoted by DHAN Foundation and other NGOs. These programmes are offered in the themes of MicroFinance, Natural resource Management, Livelihood promotion, Strengthening Local governance (Panchayatiraj) and Gender.