Colorss Foundation

History

Colorss Foundation was founded by social entrepreneur Anand Koti on 15 September 2008. As a non-governmental organisation, Colorss Foundation is registered under the Bombay Public Trusts Act 1950 (Registration No.: F/2154/Vadodara). While the Foundation focuses most of its operations in Pune and Baroda, it aims to spread its operations nationwide across India.

As the pioneer behind Colorss Foundation, Anand Koti relies on his martial arts expertise to help women and children that have been marginalised from India’s society. While Anand has a black belt in Karate, he also has an academic background in Hospital and Health Management, Industrial Psychology, Educating Children with Special Needs and Industrial Relations and Personnel Management. Prior to establishing Colorss Foundation, Anand also gained community experience. He has since expanded his expertise in community aid by working extensively with special-abled and underprivileged children, providing training in vocational skill development, training 550+ women in self-defense skills and spearheading research in various fields.

Colorss Foundation was originally single-handedly run by Anand, but grew as more people joined the cause. As of today, Colorss Foundation is staffed by two to three permanent staff and approximately 20 active volunteers. Interns from the Symbiosis Law College and the S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research also volunteer on site every year. Currently, Colorss Foundation is based in Baroda, India, but also conducts its operations on-site and remotely from Pune, Singapore and India.

Colorss Foundation first began its efforts through Project Enhance, which was driven by the desire to help women and children develop self-defense skills in martial arts such as karate. These efforts soon expanded to various projects, which now range from providing education to teaching tertiary skills to underprivileged women. Colorss Foundation also strives to ensure that its efforts are research-backed, through Project Risachi, which conducts research on social issues by studying populations and publishing research papers. However, due to the lack of funding, Colorss Foundation has yet to pursue projects that are solely informed by the research produced under Project Risachi. Nevertheless, the Colorss Foundation continues to make milestones in its projects such as the partnership built with schools in Pune, India in 2010.

Vision

The design of the Colorss Foundation’s logo is based on the long-term goal of promoting self-sustaining projects to prevent the loss of skills. The tree symbolizes growth, well-being, self-sustaining and individuality. The color blocks in the logo reflect the different areas of opportunities within India’s society. Lastly, the earthen colors evoke a sense of calmness, purity, good and prosperous living.

Colorss Foundation’s motto is:

Enriching Lives Colorfully

The Foundation is also driven by the vision:

To transform underprivileged communities by integrating them into mainstream society and helping them realize and nurture their potential through empowering them.

Colorss Foundation aims to achieve this vision by helping underprivileged women and children become more self-reliant. To achieve this, the Foundation relies on long-term, holistic, practical and research-oriented solutions found in the fields of arts, sports, technology and science. These projects are driven by people and organisations located across India and beyond, who have pledged their time and effort to improve the livelihood of others. Colorss Foundation also prioritises creating a safe, positive and vibrant environment for these women and children.

Recognition

The efforts of Colorss Foundation have been recognised by various international and national organisations:

1. Project Enhance has been named a “Re-imagine Learning Challenge Pacesetter” by The Lego Foundation in 2014 for its efforts in transforming the way the world learns. In the Re-imagine Learning Challenge, Project Enhance also emerged as one of the semi-finalists.
2. The effortts of Colorss Foundation have repeatedly been featured in India’s national newspaper, The Times of India.
3. Since 2009, Colorss Foundation has collaborated with the UNV Online Volunteering Service that is being run by the United Nations to recruit online volunteers.
4. Colorss Foundation works in collaboration with corporate firms such as Nielsen and TechMahindra. Nielsen celebrates the Global Impact Day every year with Colorss Foundation in Baroda while TechMahindra provides the platform to sell Project Urja products in commemoration of Diwali Festival.

Projects

Colorss Foundation invests in various kinds of projects that target different beneficiary groups to improve their skillset. These projects are:

1. The Colors of Life
2. Project Enhance
3. Project Urja
4. Project Uttejana
5. The Library Project
6. Project Risachi
7. Mission 1000. This project, which tackles the problem of social insecurity faced by young girls and women in India, centres around a campaign that aims to train at least 1000 females in martial arts. To achieve this, Mission 1000 has produced Enhance, a mobile application that can be accessed to learn self-defense skills.

Other activities

Aside from these projects, Colorss Foundation is also involved in other independent activities. These include: