Welcome to Avsar Collective

ABOUT US

Disadvantaged sections of Indian society, including Dalits, OBCs, Adivasis, nomadic and DNT
communities, women, girls and gender and sexual minorities, persons with disabilities, religious
minorities, working-class individuals, and rural communities, face systematic oppression in
social, economic, educational, and political spheres. This constant and intersectional
marginalisation hinders young people’s aspirations for mobility through higher education and
work opportunities.

Avsar is an collective created by a group of friends from both rural and urban backgrounds,
based on their experience working across fields of labour, transparency and accountability,
education rights in rural Rajasthan. The organisation identifies a critical need to guide and equip
rural youth with the capacities to enable them to challenge the socio-economic and cultural
restrictions traditionally imposed on them by structures of caste, class, gender, religion, ability,
education, political accessibility, and others. These restrictions–such as structural social and
economic inequality, discrimination, lack of access to quality education and opportunities,
societal limitations–often restrict life paths to predetermined roles. These include options such as
early marriages, domestic confinement, inadequate primary, secondary, and higher education,
and limited job prospects in physically demanding and low-wage industries such as labourers in
mines, highway dhabas, truck drivers, or illegal activities such as transporting liquor to dry
states.

The cycle of poverty and societal expectations are such that it becomes difficult for young people
to move or even think beyond certain life or work patterns defined for them. A few persist in
seeking clerical roles in government or teaching positions, but success in these areas is rare.
Beyond these options, it is rare that youth have the opportunity and support to explore any other
educational or career paths, primarily due to a lack of confidence, awareness of opportunities,
guidance, and/or exposure to a world outside the one they grew up in.

VISION

Avsar envisions a socially just, inclusive, gender-just, anti-casteist, anti-Islamophobic,
non-discriminatory, and sustainable world. We aim to broaden the horizons of youth who tend to
become limited because of the structural inequalities resulting from their marginalised
backgrounds. We work with youth, understand their perspectives on what they need, and create
paths to enable them to navigate/change the trajectory of their lives, instead of being limited to
what mainstream society dictates for them. We envision this with young people as collaborators
and not beneficiaries. With the freedom to analyse and explore their experiences and dreams,
young individuals can make choices that are liberating for themselves and transformative for
society.

We asked ourselves the following questions, which led to formulating Avsar’s objectives. First,
how can we bridge the gap in access to quality education and further opportunities for those who
bear the brunt of inequality based on gender, class, caste, religion, ethnicity, and region? Second,
even if there is access to education, how should pedagogy be structured to liberate rather than
reinforce oppressive structures? For instance, in our experience in rural Rajasthan, students
attended school until the 12th grade, but they had inadequate foundational literacy and numeracy
skills. Additionally, they were not taught critical thinking, nor skills necessary for upward
economic mobility, and the discrimination they witnessed, practiced, or faced was often
reinforced in the school environment. Mere access to schooling and basic literacy are insufficient
to confront societal issues. Finally, are students who have graduated school, who are from
marginalised backgrounds, prepared for aspirational higher education and work opportunities
that could break the cycle of socio-economic poverty?

True societal change will be realised when leaders of various organisations—whether they be
corporations, companies, nonprofits, political parties, grassroots movements, and so forth—are
represented by individuals from marginalised backgrounds, and not just people who have been
born with the privilege to easily take advantage of resources and social and economic capital.