SAPNA evolved from our nascent steps at the Safdarjung Hospital and AIIMS. Our engagement, limited initially to addressing the needs of a few patients, turned our attention to the destitution and despair of multitudes of the poor and vulnerable faced with exorbitant medical and other expenses far beyond their means. It also turned our attention to the negative public health environment and made us dream of an equity-oriented, people-centric model of healthcare capable of taking care of people who are unable to afford elementary healthcare, nutritional support and medical attention.
What began as a modest effort in 2004- grew into a steadfast commitment to uphold the fundamental human right to health, education, and livelihood. Through all this, our core value of SEWA or selfless work has endured, as has our commitment to social justice and our determination to redress suffering.
Our frontline caregivers are the organization’s backbone. Coming from diverse backgrounds, they are closely aligned with SAPNA’s core values and goals. Being the Gandhian’ change you want to see in the world’- requires the ability and vision to conceptualize and navigate the labyrinthine inner dynamics of the change process. It requires the belief and conviction that selfless individual efforts can bring about change. SAPNA’s caregivers armed with that ability, vision, belief and conviction are at the vanguard of its’ entire range of initiatives.
Over the years we have treated more than 55,000 disadvantaged people at our institutional facility in Alwar, provided palliative care to hundreds of chronically sick and injured-many with permanent sequelae, and sheltered the homeless. We have provided resources for 630 surgeries and post-surgical procedures at Safdarjung Hospital, taken care of the needs of people suffering from chronic renal conditions and facilitated heart-surgeries for 43 children. Our community optometric and ophthalmology projects touched the lives of thousands of rural women and men. Our eye-surgeons have performed 11486 cataract-operations, many of them at our state-of-the-art eye hospital at Alwar.
Our education-linked projects are driven by our dream of bridging the structural inequalities of gender, caste and class. We are providing education to disadvantaged girls from villages close to our project-area in Alwar in our Shikshalaya. We are also augmenting the quality of education in a school that addresses the needs of girls from the Meo-Muslim community. Our digital literacy centre at Alwar has empowered 1249 young boys and girls, many of whom are now employed at our business process outsourcing centre.
We have begun working with rural women artisans in a new initiative to revive handcrafted, sustainable traditions in Delhi, Bihar, Rajasthan Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh-but this is still in its infancy.
Our environmental engagements have deepened over time. We are restoring water-bodies and planting trees. Our water and sanitation projects are contributing to positive health and environment outcomes.
Our journey has been far from easy but we have found strength in our values and in the constant urge to reflect, evaluate, deepen our engagements and broaden the scope of the organization over the course of the next year.
NGO SAPNA’ was registered in Delhi under the Societies Registration Act on 21st October, 2004. It was founded by a group of professionals who shared a dream to work on a people-centric model of development in areas of health, education, gender, community development and social welfare. Inspired by Gandhian ideals of ‘Sewa’ i.e. selfless service, SAPNA’s mission is to work/act as an ‘agent of change’ to support and empower the poor and the marginalized. 
