Starting a blog....a tentative introduction to Doosra Dashak

I have been writing on other people's blogs for a while now. This is a blog about a movement I have been peripherally associated with called Doosra Dashak. Literally it means "second decade" and works with adolescents in their second decade of life. I say its is a movement, and I'll explain how through this blog, but more formally, its called a project.

So, Doosra Dashak is a "project" of the Jaipur-based Foundation of Education and Development and began in 2001. It works with adolescents from areas of extreme poverty and educational deprivation. It operates in 620 villages in nine blocks (a block is a decentralized administrative unit below the district) whose population is 15 million. Two of the blocks are inhabited by India’s most “backward tribes” – the Sahariyas and the Girasiyas. Other blocks have large concentrations of Dalit and of Muslim populations. One of the blocks is located in the heart of the Thar Desert – an ecologically fragile area with endemic drought.

I am hoping I can rope in Friends of Doosra Dashak to write on this blog.