Connecting People. Creating Opportunities. Changing Lives.

Founded in 2010, Ekta Foundation stands as one of India’s most trusted grassroots organizations dedicated to transforming lives through the power of Education, Empowerment, and Equality (3Es). Headquartered in Delhi and active across more than ten states, Ekta Foundation works at the intersection of social innovation, livelihood creation, and community welfare, empowering people to rise beyond barriers and participate meaningfully in India’s growth story.

Our Core Purpose

At Ekta Foundation, we believe that every person deserves the chance to learn, earn, and live with dignity. Our work is about bringing people together, children who dream big, women who want to stand tall, youth eager to shape their futures, and families striving for stability. We help them access what truly changes lives: good education, practical skills, reliable healthcare, and social security.

Over the years, we’ve grown from a small grassroots effort into a vibrant, pan-India movement. Today, we’re not just supporting communities, we’re helping them build their own paths to self-reliance, entrepreneurship, and local leadership, using the power of knowledge, training, and technology.

Our Flagship Initiative: Didi Ka Dhaba – Community Kitchens Empowering Women

As on Date, the Community Kitchens of Ekta foundation serves more than 50,000 meals per day across locations

At the heart of Ekta Foundation’s mission beats the story of “Didi Ka Dhaba”, a growing movement of community kitchens powered by women entrepreneurs from low-income neighborhoods. More than just an initiative, it’s a model of livelihood and dignity, where everyday women, homemakers, single mothers, and survivors of hardship, transform their culinary skills into thriving, self-sustaining enterprises.

Through a blend of training, mentorship, and structured incubation, each “Didi” learns to manage her kitchen like a business. From acquiring entrepreneurial and digital skills to handling orders and payments, gaining FSSAI and municipal food safety certifications, and building financial literacy for day-to-day bookkeeping, the program prepares them to compete and grow in a professional marketplace. Their reach now extends far beyond their neighborhoods. With market linkages to platforms like Zomato, Swiggy, and ONDC, as well as corporate canteens and CSR collaborations, Didi Ka Dhaba has evolved from a small pilot kitchen in Delhi into a scalable, cloud-based kitchen network. Today, it serves thousands of nutritious, affordable meals while ensuring income stability for over 300 women across cities.

Each Didi Ka Dhaba kitchen runs with a strong sense of purpose — eco-friendly packaging, zero-waste operations, and support for local supply chains are built into the model. Recognized as a pioneering blend of gender empowerment and food entrepreneurship, the initiative offers a replicable, sustainable framework for inclusive growth and social transformation.

Community Kitchens as Social Enterprises

At Ekta Foundation, community kitchens are far more than food outlets, they are living laboratories of empowerment where food becomes a medium for dignity, employment, and collective growth. Each kitchen represents a micro-enterprise run by women who have turned their everyday skills into sustainable livelihoods.

These kitchens serve a dual purpose that reflects Ekta’s larger philosophy of inclusion. On one hand, they deliver affordable, healthy, home-style meals to thousands of urban and semi-urban residents, students, workers, daily wage earners, and families who seek both nutrition and trust. On the other, they provide safe, dignified workspaces where women come together to learn, earn, and lead, managing finances, supply chains, and digital orders with entrepreneurial confidence.

The Community Kitchen model is designed as a social enterprise framework, integrating livelihood generation with social impact. Each kitchen functions as a self-sustaining business unit, with profits reinvested into training, equipment upgrades, and community welfare. Through a blend of micro-entrepreneurship, collective ownership, and digital integration, Ekta Foundation is helping build a new category of women-led foodpreneurs who bring professionalism and purpose to the informal food economy.

Looking ahead, Ekta Foundation aims to scale “Didi Ka Dhaba” into a national network of women-managed micro-kitchens by collaborating with Skill India, National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM), and local municipal bodies. The vision includes developing a dedicated “Didi Ka Dhaba” mobile app to streamline digital orders and training modules, alongside a franchise-based cluster model that connects kitchens with nutrition programs, CSR partnerships, and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) for sustainable sourcing.

By reimagining kitchens as platforms of transformation, Ekta Foundation is nurturing an ecosystem where every meal served feeds both a family and a future — turning everyday kitchens into engines of economic resilience, social inclusion, and community pride.

Beyond the Kitchen: Building Lives, Skills, and Sustainable Futures

While Didi Ka Dhaba remains our flagship initiative, Ekta Foundation’s work extends far beyond the kitchen. Across India, we are helping children learn, women lead, artisans innovate, and communities grow stronger together. Our approach combines compassion with capability — ensuring every initiative is both human-centered and technically sound.

Education & Skill Development

At the heart of change lies learning. Through “Ekta Ki Pathshala” and our network of 25+ training centres, we offer remedial education, digital literacy, and employability training to children and young people from underserved backgrounds. These centres don’t just teach skills — they build confidence, curiosity, and courage. Thousands of students have gone on to pursue better jobs, higher studies, and entrepreneurial dreams, proving that education truly is the first step to empowerment.

Livelihood & Entrepreneurship

We believe livelihoods should be sustainable, dignified, and future-ready. Ekta Foundation works with artisans, street vendors, and nano-entrepreneurs, designing programs that integrate financial literacy, market access, and digital inclusion. By linking traditional skills with modern enterprise models and government missions, we help people move from survival to self-sufficiency. Our partnerships with CSR programs and development agencies have created hundreds of micro-entrepreneurs who are now active contributors to India’s growing social economy.

Environment & Sustainability

For us, sustainability is not an afterthought — it’s a way of life. Whether it’s promoting waste segregation, recycling, water conservation, or eco-friendly packaging in our community kitchens, we embed environmental stewardship into every project. Each initiative is designed to protect the planet while empowering people, creating a cycle where livelihoods and nature coexist harmoniously.

Women and Child Development

Empowering a woman uplifts an entire community. Ekta Foundation runs health awareness drives, nutrition campaigns, and financial inclusion workshops to help women and adolescent girls make informed, independent choices. Our programs focus on building not just economic capacity but also social confidence — ensuring every woman and child we touch moves one step closer to a life of dignity and opportunity.

Research, Surveys & Social Impact Assessments

Knowledge drives change. Our team regularly conducts baseline studies, field surveys, and social impact assessments for government and CSR partners, helping shape evidence-based policymaking in livelihoods, education, and micro-enterprise development. Our work has been cited in the research publication “Nano Delights: Unveiling the Vibrant World of Delhi’s Street Food Vendors in Sizzling Streets”, highlighting our commitment to rigorous field-based insights and community-driven data.

Our Reach

Presence: Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu & North Eastern States
Network: 25+ training centres and 100+ local NGO partners
Lives Impacted: Over 50,000 individuals through education, skill development, and livelihood programs

Our Vision

To build a just, equitable, and self-reliant society by bridging socio-economic gaps through Education, Empowerment, and Equality.

Our Mission

To deliver affordable, innovative, and sustainable solutions in education, healthcare, skill development, and livelihood — while spreading awareness about government schemes, financial inclusion, and citizen welfare.

Our Essence

Ekta Foundation – Building Connections. Empowering Lives. Creating Brighter Futures.