Our Story
Our story goes back around seven years, to our founders Surendra and Elizabeth Shroff. Armed with a passion for and experience of disability first-hand, they had a vision to involve persons with disability as ‘Change Makers’ and co-produce livelihood opportunities for value creation for a sustainable and inclusive future for all.
We started off simply with a pilot at Bengaluru providing entrepreneurial skills development training for persons with disability. And while that was very successful in promoting access to training and employment opportunities for persons with disability, we realised that it fell short of creating the multiplier effect in terms of promoting wider social, economic and environmental impact.
We see our role as a catalyst working with persons with disability and communities they live in. And believe that they alone are best placed to realise their true potential to transform individual lives and create shared value for the greater good.
We are still evolving. We focus on one individual, one goal and one outcome at a time – always attempting to be the best at what we do.
We work with our partners and supporters to invest resources judiciously to create a lasting impact in the lives of persons with disability and the communities they live in.
This is done through:
- Training on issues of disability and inclusion.
- Survey to map individual needs and requirements.
- Goal setting based on individual and family circumstances.
- Entitlement check for eligible benefits.
- Provision of livelihood training and support.
- Access to finance and bank linkage for income generation activities.
- Incubation and market linkage support.
- Monitoring and course correction for improved outcomes.
Our Vision
A world where individual ability, not disability, counts.
Our mission
To build resilience and help create and maintain work for persons with disability.
Our Goals
We currently work across Bengaluru, Gadag and Haveri Districts in Karnataka. Our goal is to create sustainable livelihoods for five thousand households of persons with disability by 2025.
To achieve this we will:
- Establish a local network of Arambha Swaudyoga Kendra (ASK) ಆರಂಭ ಸ್ವಉದ್ಯೋಗ ಕೇಂದ್ರ in Kannada, Enterprise Start-up and Self-employment centres across Gadag and Haveri Districts.
- Develop Mevundi and Shiggaon as farm-based training resource centres and demonstration sites for environment education, sustainable and inclusive development.
- Establish model social enterprises that are run and managed by persons with disability.
- Enhance access to financial inclusion services and support.
- Establish a digital social enterprise centre at Bengaluru.
Based on success achieved and in the lead-up to 2030 we will scale-up our activities across other districts and apply insights gained from our work to maximize impact.
Core Values
- Sustainability
- Transparency
- Inclusion and equality
- Fairness
- Innovation and continuous improvement
- Autonomy
- Integrity
Objectives
- Establish an integrated farming system (IFS) model farm and environment education centre at Mevundi in Gadag District and Shiggaon in Haveri District in North Karnataka.
- Create disability self-help-groups and community based organisations that are run and managed by persons with disability.
- Support the development of model social enterprises that are run and managed by persons with disability.
- Establish an inclusive entrepreneurship digital training and incubation centre at Bengaluru.
- Build partnerships with community organisations and education institutions, government, non government and private sector organisations to promote best practice.
OUR Focus
At Disability Entrepreneurship And Leadership Foundation we:
- Build individual and community resilience.
- Develop individual skills for work and social participation.
- Equip participants to find and evaluate livelihood and enterprise development opportunities.
- Create sustainable livelihoods for independent living.
- Create wider social gains.
We do this by engaging :
- People with Disabilities, their families and their wider community.
- Non governmental, disability and community organizations.
- Business organizations and enterprises in the private sector.
- Public sector organizations and academic institutions.
