Welcome to

SUKARMA FOUNDATION INDIA

Sukarma Foundation is a volunteer-driven non-profit organization working on improving lives of rural Indians.

Key initiatives (or Karmas) by the foundation include educating women about importance of female hygiene and health, empowering them through employment opportunities via sustainable businesses, providing telemedicine facility to people in remote areas with a want of timely quality medical assistance, making basic education available to children and adults from impoverished sections of the Indian rural population and many more.

Sukarma believes in making a sustainable positive impact in people’s lives by driving grass-root change and enabling people to help themselves.

The foundation is registered in California, USA, as a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization with tax ID 82-2520356, with members of the nonprofit spread through India, USA, Netherlands and several other countries. Sukarma Foudnation’s India branch is also a registered non-governmental organization (NGO) in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. Donations to the Sukarma foundation are tax-deductible in the USA.

OUR KARMA

Sanitary Napkin Manufacturing Mini Factory

A sizeable population of rural Madhya Pradesh lives on less than one USD a day i.e. about INR 72. An average sanitary napkin costs INR 6. Assuming that the woman will change her pad thrice a day to maintain optimal hygiene standards, she will spend INR 18 each day that she is menstruating. For thousands of families, this is a cost that they cannot bear. Circumstances do not allow them to perceive buying sanitary napkins as an investment or necessity; rather, they are a luxury they cannot afford.

Sukarma Telemedicine Primary Health Care Center

In India, there is huge inequality in health-care distribution, where nearly 75% of Indians live in rural villages and more than 75% of Indian doctors are based in cities. The Indian government spends just 0.9% of the country’s annual gross domestic product on health, and a fairly limited amount reaches remote rural villages. Poor villagers try to wait out the illness and when it becomes unbearable, they spend most of their savings on travel to specialty hospitals in cities and for staying in those cities during treatment. In addition, due to transport being inadequate, people have to spend several hours to reach a qualified physician in the semi-rural area. Many quacks take advantage of the situation and provide dangerous, often life-threatening drugs and/or shots, resulting in serious complications including death.

Founder Maya Vishwakarma

Maya Vishwakarma is the Founder and Chairperson of Sukarma Foundation. A native of Mehragaon village in district Narsinghpur, Madhya Pradesh (MP), India, Maya has been living in San Francisco, California, USA, for nearly a decade. After completing high school in her village, she went to Jabalpur RDVV University for her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Biochemistry. Her Master’s thesis dissertation work at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi focused on Nuclear Medicine. Later, she finished her Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) in similar areas.

our causes

A documentary on participatory governance exemplified in Baghuvar village

Story of the Sanitary Napkin No Tension 

Sevathon

Social & Media Coverage

Media Coverage

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