Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA) is a non-profit development organisation committed to enabling vulnerable groups to access their rights. YUVA encourages the formation of people’s collectives that engage in the discourse on development, thereby ensuring self-determined and sustained collective action in communities. This work is complemented with advocacy and policy recommendations. Founded in Mumbai in 1984, currently YUVA operates in the states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Assam and New Delhi. At the community-level, through an integrated 360-degree approach, YUVA delivers solutions on issues of housing, livelihood, environment and governance. Through research, YUVA creates knowledge that enhances capacity building. Through partnerships in campaigns, YUVA provides solidarity and builds strong alliances to drive change.

Vision

YUVA believes that development is a continuous struggle to create a humane society, which sustains all human beings, as well as nature, where women, men and children enjoy universal human rights. A humane society based on the values of equality, distributive justice and secularism is liberated from oppression on the basis of caste, class, creed, gender, age,ethnicity, language; is free from all forms of exploitation and violence; and demonstratesintegrity and respect for democratic polity and processes.

Mission

YUVA will empower the oppressed and the marginalized by facilitating their organisations and institutions towards building equal partnerships in the development process, ensuring the fulfillment of the human right to live in security, dignity and peace. YUVA will also engage in critical partnership with the government and forge alliances with other actors of civil society such as people’s movements, trade unions, women’s group, academic institutions and the private sector to enable and strengthen the people’s empowerment processes.

Core Values

YUVA is committed to certain fundamental principles of development, which YUVA considers asits core values. These core values are:

• Social Justice
• Gender Justice
• Environmental Sustainability
• Honesty and Integrity
• Secularism and Democracy

• Over three decades (1984) of development work: Poverty, Habitats, Environment, Social Security, Governance, inclusionv
• At the community-level, through an integrated 360-degree approach, YUVA delivers solutions on social issues
• The Holistic Approach that YUVA has towards the needs of the society, coupled with a scientific understanding of the community ensures scalability and sustainability of the projects
• Internally, YUVA has a committed team with passion and professionalism. They have strong internal controls and a credible financial management system.

As a 36-year non-profit working on urban issues Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA)has a deep understanding of people’s needs, and is committed to social transformation. YUVA through an integrated 360-degree approach, has been delivering solutions on social issues at the community level. To achieve our goal of Enduring commitment to social transformation, we have focussed on three key areas :

Poverty Alleviation: To create a space for engagement with the urban poor so that they can participate in decision making for themselves. Towards this we undertake conscientization through training process,

Environment: The concept of environment includes both the natural environment and human/social environment. This theme focuses on issues of quality, equity and sustainability in relation to the development and management of natural resources and the quality of human life

Urban Governance and Planning: Facilitation of the democratisation of power and decentralised access to and management of public resources

These interventions have brought about positive and impactful changes.The organization has in place a robust reporting and monitoring& evaluation system. YUVA has received Gold Certification from Guidestar. YUVA is accredited as an NGO with General Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) YUVA has Successfully completed an external assessment through GolbalGiving Evaluation Programme. The key highlights of their work from 2015-20 inlcude: 100+bastis outreach, 15,000+children reached,18,000+youth reached,14,000+legal IDs delivered to people(ration card, voter ID, etc)60 lakh+wages recovered through the Labour Helpline,1500+livelihood trainings