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This awareness website is maintained by Ugravedan Foundation, a not for profit organization. We are registered under section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013. We are committed to empowering community with valuable health knowledge so that they people can live healthier and happier lives.
Our focus has been substance addiction as we believe that our society owes it to our youth to caution them about the true consequences of using these substances, so that they don’t get fooled by the misleading propaganda.
We were a part of WHO SEARO’s ‘Meri Pyaari Zindagi’ campaign. This website is the official website of the campaign. The campaign has 10 videos, 10 audio stories and 20 memes to sensitize youth about various aspects related to alcohol addiction in an interesting & engaging way.
Besides these, we have written some blogs and compiled together many other wonderful open-source resources from around the world that will help you protect yourself, your family, and the community around you from these addictive poisons.
Our Vision
To empower the community with valuable knowledge regarding mental health and other key health issues, so that people can take better care of their health.
Our Main Activities
Presentations to empower youngsters with adequate knowledge about alcohol, tobacco & cannabis and answer common misconceptions, so that they can resist the rising peer pressure. We have given more than 550 presentations on this topic till now.
Conducting workshops on various life skills, especially for children from marginalized sections of society.
Supporting people who contact us via email or phone to quit alcohol and tobacco.
Conducting trainings for those active citizens who want to spread awareness on the issue of substance addiction.
Conducting trainings to empower health professionals and counsellors to help people in quitting alcohol and tobacco.
Creating awareness material on various health issues for dissemination via social media.
Why we choose to focus on alcohol and tobacco addiction?
As per Global Burden of disease study 2019, the most common risk factors responsible for life years lost due to disability (DALYs) in young people aged 25—49 years are alcohol use, high blood pressure, High BMI (Obesity), Tobacco use, respectively.
Alcohol & tobacco use are one of the biggest causes of the NCD epidemic. Yet perceived risk of their use is low. Thanks to aggressive marketing and western influence, the social acceptance of alcohol use is increasing rapidly in our society. We believe it is a critical time in our cultural history wherein all of us need to act urgently; or else our culture of abstinence will be lost. Damage done will be difficult to reverse later.
Why do we conduct workshops on life-skills
Our society owes it to all children that we provide them adequate nurturance. Also the future of our society depends on them. What they do with their energy depends on how constructive were the inputs that society gave them. Many children from lower socio economic strata don’t receive good quality mentoring; but they have to face tougher challenges compared to other children. The least we can do is to empower them with good life skills. This will increase their ability to handle challenges creatively and lead an addiction free lifestyle. Hence we do workshops on:
How to cultivate self esteem
Healthy ways of coping with stress and emotions
Handling bullying
Communication skills & Social skills
Internet and Screen addiction
Sex Education
Meet The Team
Dr. Dharav Sunil Shah
(Director)
Dharav did his diploma in psychiatry from BJMC, Pune and MD from NIMHANS, Bangalore. He has been working since 13 yrs on empowering youth with adequate knowledge about alcohol & tobacco. He has given more than 460 presentations on this issue, including at 53 medical colleges and various conferences. He conducts workshops on Motivational interviewing & Brief intervention for health professionals.
Other psychological issues he likes spreading awareness on are parenting, life skills, need for Indian women to learn assertiveness, stress management, etc. He loves doing therapy for people dealing with various psychological issues, with special interest in Vaginismus, OCD, alcohol & tobacco addiction, marital therapy, depression, etc.
Dr. Taru Sneh Ramnath Jindal
(Director)
Dr Taru Jindal is an Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, who completed her MS from Mumbai in 2013. After that she worked in Bihar along with ‘Care India’ towards improving quality of maternity services being provided. She was instrumental in transformation of Motihari district hospital from one of the worst to the winner of the Kayakalp Award from GOI. She then worked with ‘Doctors For You’ to start a health centre in remote village of Masarhi, focusing on health of women & malnourished children. Her experiences have been shared in the popular book ‘A Doctor’s experiments in Bihar’.
She is a board certified lactation expert who has conducted more than 42 workshops across the country empowering more than 4000 mothers and health workers with breastfeeding support skills. She was given the lifetime achievement award for this work at LAMBCON 2021.
Suyash Toshniwal
(IT Head & Community Liason Officer)
Suyash has been an active member of social organizations since student days. He chose to use his education in IT for helping the development sector. He has worked with SEARCH, MGIMS Sevagram in past and currently works with project India Fellow. Based on his rich experience and passion, Suyash contributes towards strategic planning at Ugravedan and establishing community partnerships.
Keertisudha Rajput
(Rehabilitation Psychologist)
She is a senior psychologist who has been passionately working for improving mental health service delivery and also has rich experience of life skills education. She was a faculty at ‘National Institute for the Empowerment of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities’ for many years. She helps us with module creation, research and counselling of people who call on the helpline
Tejal Khedekar
(Fellow Psychologist)
She is our first fellow. She primarily conducts addiction prevention workshops for school and college students. She has already given more than 60 awareness talks in the 6 months that she has been with us. She also counsels people who call on our helpline. Apart from being a psychologist, she is an active volunteer of Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti and loves to dance, act, sing and travel. She has Masters in Applied Psychology from Tata institute of Social Sciences and received her bachelor's degree in psychology from Ruia College. Before joining Powerful Gyaan, She worked at Mpower - Aditya Birla Education Trust as a facilitator for BMC school teachers and students for a year.