Shalika Foundation
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| Shalika Foundation | |
|---|---|
| Name | Shalika Foundation |
| Type | Nonprofit organization |
| Founded | 2004 |
| Founder | Asha Mehra |
| Headquarters | Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Area served | South Asia, East Africa |
| Focus | Child welfare, women's empowerment, disaster relief |
Shalika Foundation is a non-governmental philanthropic organization founded in 2004 focused on child welfare, women's empowerment, and disaster relief across South Asia and East Africa. The foundation operates community centers, vocational training programs, and emergency response units, collaborating with international agencies and local institutions. It has been involved in humanitarian responses to major crises and in long-term development projects in urban and rural settings.
History
Shalika Foundation was established in 2004 by social entrepreneur Asha Mehra in the aftermath of regional crises that followed the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, drawing on models from Red Cross, UNICEF, UNHCR, Oxfam, and Save the Children. Early efforts concentrated on relief and rehabilitation in coastal districts of Sri Lanka, working alongside organizations such as World Bank, Asian Development Bank, United Nations Development Programme, and International Organization for Migration to coordinate reconstruction and resettlement. In the late 2000s the foundation expanded into livelihood programs modeled on initiatives by BRAC, Grameen Bank, CARE International, and Mercy Corps, while partnering with university research centers like Harvard University's Humanitarian Initiative and University of Oxford's Department of International Development. During the 2010s Shalika Foundation broadened operations to include projects in Kenya and Uganda, collaborating with regional actors such as African Union and Kenya Red Cross Society and participating in multi-agency responses to the 2011 East Africa drought and the 2015 Nepal earthquake alongside IFRC and World Food Programme.
Mission and Programs
Shalika Foundation's stated mission emphasizes protecting vulnerable children and empowering women through education, skills training, and health interventions, aligning programmatic approaches with frameworks from UNICEF child protection policies and World Health Organization maternal-child health guidelines. Core programs include early childhood development centers inspired by Head Start Program models, vocational training modeled on ILO decent work initiatives, and community-based disaster risk reduction drawing on UNDRR methodologies. The foundation runs youth leadership programs influenced by Teach For All and nonformal education curricula used by Save the Children and Plan International, while its public health activities coordinate with protocols from Médecins Sans Frontières and national ministries of health in partner countries.
Organizational Structure
Shalika Foundation operates a decentralized structure with a central secretariat in Colombo, regional program offices in Colombo, Nairobi, and Kampala, and local community centers staffed by program managers, social workers, and volunteers. Governance includes a Board of Trustees with figures drawn from civil society, academia, and the private sector, modeled on governance practices seen in Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and Ford Foundation. The executive team comprises an Executive Director, a Director of Programs, a Director of Finance, and a Director of Monitoring and Evaluation, with advisory committees for safeguarding, audit, and international partnerships reflecting standards used by Transparency International and International Civil Society Centre.
Funding and Partnerships
Funding for Shalika Foundation is diversified across private philanthropy, institutional grants, and corporate partnerships. Major donors have included family foundations, diaspora philanthropists, and philanthropic arms of multinational corporations comparable to Mastercard Foundation, Coca-Cola Foundation, and Hilton's corporate social responsibility programs. Institutional grants have been secured from multilateral institutions such as World Bank trust funds and bilateral agencies like UK Department for International Development and foundations linked to European Commission humanitarian funds. Strategic partnerships include memoranda of understanding with universities for research collaboration, field cooperation agreements with humanitarian actors like UNICEF and WFP, and implementation partnerships with local NGOs patterned after alliances seen between CARE International and regional civil society networks.
Impact and Evaluation
Shalika Foundation employs monitoring and evaluation frameworks drawing on USAID and DFID evaluation standards, using mixed-methods impact assessments, randomized control trial designs in pilot initiatives, and participatory evaluations with beneficiary communities. Reported outcomes include increased school enrollment rates in project areas, improved maternal and child health indicators aligned with Millennium Development Goals and later Sustainable Development Goals, and livelihood income gains among women's groups modeled on microfinance success stories like those of Grameen Bank. Independent evaluations have been commissioned from academic partners at London School of Economics and Columbia University to assess program effectiveness and scalability, with results informing strategic shifts toward greater sustainability and local ownership.
Notable Projects and Initiatives
Notable initiatives include a coastal rehabilitation program after the 2004 tsunami that coordinated with United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and national reconstruction authorities; a women-led vocational hub modeled on SEWA practices that expanded into social enterprises; a youth skills consortium partnering with Microsoft and local technical institutes to provide digital literacy and coding bootcamps; and a refugee support project in East Africa that worked with UNHCR and regional refugee coordination mechanisms. The foundation also piloted a cash-transfer program in partnership with World Food Programme and a disaster preparedness toolkit distributed in collaboration with IFRC.
Awards and Recognition
Shalika Foundation and its leadership have received regional awards and recognitions from civil society and development platforms, including acknowledgments at conferences hosted by Asian Development Bank, citations in impact forums organized by Skoll Foundation and Ashoka, and humanitarian commendations alongside partners like International Rescue Committee. Senior staff have been speakers at events convened by TEDx, invited to panels at Clinton Global Initiative, and included in lists of social innovators curated by Schwab Foundation.