Uplifting the poor in both rural & urban India
Jeevan Sahara, an initiative of Stepping Stone Charitable Society, works to uplift the poor and underprivileged in both rural and urban India through income generation, micro-enterprise, employment assistance, and education and skill training. A core part of the project is identifying and training local mentors, leaders, and motivators who can carry this transformation forward within their own communities.
Our Approach
Jeevan Sahara brings transformation to the poor and underprivileged in rural and urban communities through four key approaches: empowering the poor via income generation, micro-enterprise, employment assistance and education/skill training; developing communities through social upliftment projects such as schools, wells and toilets; equipping children, youth and women through community training, care groups, value-based training, social skills and adult literacy; and community training by identifying local influencers in rural communities who go on to train others. A critical part of this work is training — identifying and equipping individuals with the potential to become mentors, leaders and motivators within their own communities.
Training & Empowerment
Jeevan Sahara runs training programs covering relational training within the family, hygiene and health seminars in keeping with Swachh Bharat, vision-building for social and personal change, motivational workshops, and empowerment training in finance and entrepreneurship. Alongside this, the project provides microfinancing for self-employment: assisting families with small businesses such as goat breeding, general stores and jewellery shops in Uttar Pradesh villages, and supporting a rural school near Ajamgarh that has grown from its first batch of students in 2018 to over 200 students today, now including a computer lab. Women and children receive focused support too, including self-employment training, counselling, and assistance to widows, orphans and HIV-positive women and children.
Impact
Since it began, Jeevan Sahara has touched hundreds of lives across rural Uttar Pradesh and the Station Boys community in Varanasi. Around 25 station boys and girls at Din Dayal Upadhyay railway station, Mughal Sarai, have completed their 10th-standard schooling through the project’s care — including Roshan, orphaned and taken in for six years, now working in a restaurant, and Govind Kumar, found fending for himself at the station and now pursuing a B.Com degree while working in a mall. Other lives changed include Neha Kumari, trained and placed in restaurant work and now supporting her seven younger sisters; Yacub Masih, who now owns his own auto-rickshaw in Nepal; and Sanjay Kumar and Santosh Kumar, who each started their own small businesses after attending a youth meeting. Jeevan Sahara is not just about aid — it’s about transformation, one family at a time.
Contact us
Sydney Nevis – +91 9820120192 | Nigel Pereira – +91 9819777286 | mail us at – steppingstonemumbai@gmail.com