Gaon Connection Launches ‘The Changemakers Project’ to Build a National Registry of Changemakers

In an attempt to recognise and celebrate individuals and institutions that have brought about a positive change in the society and impacted a large number of lives, Gaon Connection launched ‘The Changemakers Project’ today, on October 2, on Gandhi Jayanti and Shastri Jayanti.

This unique long term project aims to build a one-of-its-kind National Registry of Changemakers in the country. From social workers, teachers, environmentalists, farmers, artists, to individuals whose work has transformed lives will be featured as part of The Changemakers Project.

Gaon Connection has been building and nurturing connections for the past eleven years now. The Changemakers Project is another step in that direction. There are hundreds of thousand people out there — the doers — whose life mission is to help others. And they often work under extreme circumstances with bare minimum resources — financial or material.

Then, there is another set of people — the helpers — who have the resources and wish to help the doers but do not know how to reach them, or how to verify the impact of their work before supporting them.

The National Registry of Changemakers, which will be built as part of this project, will act as a bridge between the doers and the helpers, and connect the both. This is possibly the first time any such national registry of changemakers is being created in the country.

Talking about the need to launch The Changemaker Project, Neelesh Misra, founder of Gaon Connection stated that it is the need of hour to recognise good samaritans who have not received their due credit and recognition.

“This project is the result of our longing to recognise the faceless, selfless individuals who have been positively impacting the lives of people. These changemakers belong to the tribe which doesn’t understand the world of branding and marketing. It is about those individuals who are shy of cameras and don’t know or believe in making reels about their good work on social media. These are the ‘changemakers’ we wish to document,” he told Gaon Connection.

“These unrecognised changemakers are the people because of whom this world has been a brighter place despite the multitude of darkness around. It is these people who are seldom counted as heroes but continue to make their vital contributions to make the world a better place,” he added.

The categories under which video, audio and text stories of the changemakers will be documeted include technological innovations, farming and allied sectors, education, livelihoods, health and food, gender and human rights, water and sanitation, environment, climate change and wildlife, art, culture and lifestyle, and legal issues.

“The Changemakers Project is a bold attempt by Gaon Connection to create a unique registry of changemakers in India,” said Nidhi Jamwal, Managing Editor of Gaon Connection. “For the past eleven years now, we have been recording hundreds of stories of every day heroes who work selflessly. But there is a strong need to bring all these ‘doers’ under an umbrella so that these heroes and their work becomes more visible, and people or organisations who want to help them, can easily connect with them,” she added.

“With a presence in 470 districts of the country, spread across every state, we aim to do two things through this project. Firstly, our team of community journalists, ground activation volunteers, and reporters will document video, text and audio stories of changemakers, with a strong focus on rural India. Secondly, we will also build a national registry of these changemakers,” explained Jamwal.

By registering and logging into the national registry, members will be able to search through the changemakers in the country and reach out to them for help, whether it is in terms of financial resources, or time, or material donations (laptops, smartboards), free training, teach how to write corporate social responsibility [CSR] applications.

Earlier this year, Gaon Connection launched the Teacher Connection project to document stories of teachers and educators in rural India. Similarly, under the Kisaan Connection project, Gaon Connection documents stories of farmers and agriculture and allied sectors.

Last month, on Teachers Day, Gaon Connection released a comprehensive publication titled 100 Tales of Teachers Transforming Education in Rural India under the Teacher Connection project.

The Gaon Connection Insights vertical regularly brings out open source books that offer deep insights into rural India. It has conducted three rural surveys across India and published three exhaustive reports on the findings of these surveys. These survey reports can also be downloaded for free at www.gaonconnection.com.

The Gaon Connection Insights platform has been conceived to give voice to the concerns, issues, challenges and achievements of rural India and make these voices heard in the corridors of power. It's an attempt to bring the voices in the margin to the mainstream and fill the gaping vacuum between the two.

If you wish to join The Changemakers Project as a volunteer and help us connect with changemakers in your area, please email us --

[email protected]

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WhatsApp us at +91 95656 11118