Dr. Shikha Vyas is a social worker working in southern Rajasthan for the upliftment of tribal women. She helps them organize in self-help groups and encourages them to save money for the future.

Dr. Shikha Vyas has been a social worker associated with the People’s Education and Development Organization (Jan Shiksha Evam Vikas Sangathan MADA) since 2006. The organization, founded by her father, Devilal Vyas, has been working for the upliftment of tribal people and women in southern Rajasthan for the past forty years.

Shikha has done her graduation and post-graduation from Modi University, Laxmangarh, Sikar, Rajasthan.

Shikha says that they are working for the upliftment of tribal women in Dungarpur, Banswara, Sikar, and Udaipur. She informs us that many people (especially males) migrate from these regions to Gujarat and Maharashtra, and women are left behind to take care of everything. Shikha says that it is their mission to make the conditions for these tribal women socially sustainable and financially viable.

She shares that there are many problems faced by these women. They have small landholdings, have no knowledge about high-yield farming or water conservation, and are socially chained. They are unaware of the concept of savings and investments. When they face health issues and diseases, they end up losing whatever cash and ornaments they have to pay the hospitals, as they are unaware of insurance policies.

Shikha says that her organization helps such women and organizes them into self-help groups. They started working on the five pillars these tribals depend on: ‘Jal’, ‘Jameen’, ‘Jungle’, 'Janwar', and ‘Jann’. They started teaching local people about the importance of water conservation and how to build small check dams to collect rainwater. She says that they introduced them to a high-yielding variety of seeds to increase production on the limited landholdings that they have. They taught tribals about animal husbandry and how it can become an alternate source of income. Shikha says that creating awareness about their forest rights was also a task they undertook. All these activities were done through proper training, and they had a planned framework in order to make them more viable.

They started the ‘Shiksha Karmi’ program to impart education to older women who were not able to study in their youth. Some of these women also got government jobs after this. They started organizing them into small self-help groups and teaching them the importance of saving money. ‘Saving Credit’ is one of the largest programs being run by PEDO and has about 70–80 thousand families enrolled in it. They have seven to eight thousand SHGs under them at the block level. Some SHGs have been converted into federations at the district level. They have 13 such district federations running presently.

During COVID, Shikha says that they collaborated with organizations like the Tata Trust, PepsiCo, and UNDP and distributed essentials like food, sanitary napkins, sanitizers, masks, and other essentials to the people in need.

Shikha says that they are focused on children now. Child labor and a lack of education are two issues they are dealing with. Child-sensitive projects are being run in collaboration with the United Nations, and efforts are being made to educate parents and their families.

Shikha says her father is her biggest motivation. Even at the age of 70, he works more than ten hours a day. She has seen him work for society since her childhood. His dedication to society inspires Shikha and motivates her to work for the welfare of society. Shikha feels that our parents are the first school we go to and learn values from.

Her message to the youth is to learn from every moment and to respect elders. Shikha says that the youth should acknowledge the hard work that their parents have put in to raise them and contemplate how they are helping their parents back. She urges everyone to contribute to society selflessly.