Sarvodaya

Sarvodaya is the country’s largest NGO and social movement that works with millions of people in thousands of villages to further sustainable development and economic innovation, holistic education and conflict transformation, women’s empowerment and participatory forms of governance. Six years ago GAF’s Walter Link was asked by Sarvodaya’s founder, Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne (with whom Walter is co-authoring a book about Buddhist economics and leadership) to help modernize it’s strategy and leadership development in alignment with its traditional work and Buddhist philosophy. Today our collaboration ranges from training 30,000 democracy activists to helping to transform, also with Hein Dijksterhuis, Sarvodaya’s 25-year old microfinance NGO into a fully regulated development bank that also proves the validity of a new economic model.