Digital Empowerment Foundation has made a conscious effort to work for the enablement and mass digital empowerment of marginalized and vulnerable communities across the nation. A digital evangelist for over 18 years, our various initiatives have equipped communities with access to information and brought them out of digital darkness. On the path towards connectivity, DEF…
Tamil Nadu’s Karimnagar district is home to a young software engineer aspirant who is also breaking gender stereotypes. An ambitious 17 year old, M. Srija is passionate about mathematics and machines and the STEM classes are usually the best part about her day. But the pandemic led lockdown suddenly put a halt to her STEM…
The global healthcare crisis has led to the decline of multiple sectors across countries and communities. Stories about families unable to perform last rights, hospitals reaching patient capacity, unavailability of hospital beds, exhausted and overworked healthcare workers, migrants travelling long distances to reach home, among gut wrenching incidents of apathy have made our realities somber.…
The migrant crisis that has unfolded in the wake of COVID – 19 has thrown into sharp relief how deeply economic vulnerabilities entrenched and precocities were and how inadequate existing institutional and administrative frameworks are in dealing with crises and disasters. The article is the product of relief services provided by the Digital Empowerment Foundation…
The healthcare crisis has brought a drastic change in people’s lives across the globe. Unemployment has hit almost every sector and even UNLOCK 2.0 has not brought much relief. An already troubled sector, the handloom industry is in fact going through its worst ever crisis. But there is still hope. One of DEF’s weaver clusters…
The lockdown induced pandemic has made life tougher for everyone, but especially for underprivileged communities living in digital darkness. Jasub Mirana is one among thousands of people who grew financially weak amid the pandemic. A poor 51 year-old labourer from Barmer, Rajasthan, he was unable to avail any government scheme due to lack of documents.…
Ramabai lives with her two boys, Sitaram and Radhe, in Madhya Pradesh. The sole breadwinner due to her husband’s untimely death, she struggles to make ends meet. Working as a wage laborer, she wishes to provide the best education to her sons and is prepared to fight her way through anything. To make her living…
A grocery store owner and a tailor, Raveena Kumari is the sole earner in her family with huge responsibilities. Resident of Belahwa village in Bihar’s Champaran district, she would sometimes struggle with calculation and stock counting at the store and coming up with new designs while stitching clothes. Our facilitators in the area introduced her…
The pandemic has significantly disrupted the education sector- which is a critical determinant of a country’s economic future. In India, 320 million students have been affected by COVID-19 school closures, and though the government quickly recommended shifting to “online teaching,” this ignores India’s immense digital divide—with embedded gender and class divides. In an effort to…
The Covid-19 crisis is expected to have a lasting economic effect on many low-income communities across the country, especially in rural India. The lockdown led to a halt in the main source of livelihood for many families in villages, making survival tough. Most people struggled to find an alternate source of income and lack of…