Saath, founded in 1989, is an NGO in India registered as a Public Charitable Trust and is based in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Saath closely works with the vulnerable communities and empowers the socially marginalized by providing them livelihood linkages, imparting skills leading to employment, health and education facilities. The focus areas of Saath are livelihoods, skill development, health and education, rights, urban governance, financial inclusion, rehabilitation and resettlement and other community development initiatives.

Saath began as a Charitable Trust that pioneered in rejuvenating underprivileged slums and vulnerable neighborhoods into self-sustaining and developed communities by its Integrated Community Development Programme changing the environment of urban slums. Saath through its one-stop centers pro-videos supports slum dwellers to obtain government identities, providing them access to public benefit schemes, imparting skills leading to employment, micro-finance for vital personal consumption and setting up SMEs and providing access to the habitable environment and basic education.

Over the years, Saath has partnered with various entities – government, corporates, individuals and other NGO/NPOs for several undertakings of the greater good. In the last 30 years, Saath has rendered its services to several slum residents, migrants, minorities, children, women, youth and vulnerable people in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra (Mumbai) and has touched the lives of more than 15 lakh individuals.

As Saath marches forward with its partners in its journey towards uplifting the marginalized, it keeps on expanding its horizon of the communities it serves. In this journey, Saath has received several accolades for its programs, internal systems, organizational ethics, best practices in resource mobilization and sustainability models, the latest one of them being the – Leadership Award & Inspire Award in the year 2018-19 for the excellence in the field of child education and women empowerment.

• Research-Saath mobilizes resources at an individual/collective level and the resource mobilized are in terms of human, financial or physical. These include production activities to generate resources.
• Entrepreneurship-Capacity for innovation and experimentation with new groups and untried development approach.

• Affordable Housing & Financial Literacy-To facilitate private sector participation and to meet the growing need of affordable housing in the country, Saath supports to address challenges in affordable housing through various PPP models while Saath’s Financial Literacy intends to enable EWS and LIG households in informal settlements to access financial literacy education and the necessary support to be able to apply for their own home in a Government or Private housing development.
• Leadership Academy-Seeing the growth and impact of the organization the need for 2nd line has arrived. Saath has always believed in its people and ensures to develop capacity and growth. Our programs/projects are largely designed in such a manner that equal opportunity and responsibilities are provided to each team member.
• Education & Health-Since 1992-93, Saath started a community health programme and introduced a Balghar for preschool children, the concept is carried on with the approach to meet the needs of the community.

Thirty years back, when Saath started its work in slums, the children, youth and women living there were highly vulnerable in terms of their social, economic and health situation. With the strong belief that people should not be at a disadvantage because of lack of support and opportunities, Saath started working with youth, pre-school children, school dropouts, and health sector. They also ensured that the slum dwellers had reliable access to subsidies and social benefits that they were eligible to get.

From its origins, Saath’s approach to development work focused on building partnerships with communities and service providers in local government to support communities in accessing to city/ local level service providers and services.  

During these 30 years, while Saath’s focus on communities and their living environment has remained unchanged, it has moved from area-focused implementation of interventions to skills training, support for livelihoods, undertaking research, facilitating the purchase of first-time homes by slum dwellers and working with construction labour and their children. Saath believes in long term partnership, and has pioneered various projects and ensures complete transparency.