Introduction

The emergence of Matribhumi is the outcome of the felt need by a group of people who has left his family, friends, relatives, village i.e. Janmbhumi in search of bread and as a commitment towards his/her motherland and wellbeing of their own people, community and society, has decided to join hands together and work towards the betterment of the society. It took a long to decide its course. Intention was to serve the community. Instead of working individually, the group decided to form a forum to bring all the people having similar commitment to janmbhumi together. The struggle was whether to be informal or to get it registered. Few informal community processes initiated by members went on for last 10 years. In the process, we felt that for greater transparency and accountability on our part, it is better to institutionalise the process. The other struggle was - why to register yet another organisation when numerous organisations are already working. This has provided greater clarity and direction not to start the replica but to initiate a process of its own with uniqueness. This has resulted into few decisions which are very crucial for Matribhumi. Based on this, the distinguishing features of Matribhumi are :

• The core strength of Matribhumi is that it will not receive any funding support from organization/ institution or donor agency. Matribhumi will work towards mobilizing hard money from each individual with greater trust and participation
• Matribhumi will not support financially to any organization or institution, instead it aspires to support individual efforts and contribution for innovations, creativity and defining new paths.
• Matribhumi will not initiate any process anywhere, till there is local leadership to lead the process.
• Matribhumi do not have any fixed package of programmes/ activities, themes, issues. Initiative will be based on local needs and aspirations of the youth and the community.
• Matribhumi believes that youth has potential to write their own destiny and the destiny of the surroundings. It needs right orientation, direction and support.
• Matribhumi believes in full transparency and openness and therefore, open to critique, suggestions, views, opinions to self review and improvement.
• Matribhumi does not believe in ultimate-ism and therefore, is evolving and learning.
• It is a pool of local resources/ persons committed to work for themselves, their own people and the society. There is least involvement of external people. This is to ensure the sustainability of the process.
• The strength lies in the commitment shown by the individuals in the processes of the organization building.