About The Founder

Vinayak Lohani, the Founder of Parivaar, did B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (2000) and MBA from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (2003). He did not appear for the placement process at IIM, and immediately after his MBA, started Parivaar.

He was inspired by the spiritual and humanistic ideals of Swami Vivekananda, and with just 3 children in a small rented building with almost no financial resources, Vinayak started Parivaar. Till the level of 15 resident children at Parivaar, he used to take lectures for students appearing for IIMs and other Management entrance examinations and through that could meet the expenses of the organisation. Gradually people began to be inspired by this dedicated service and started to support this initiative and the number of children at Parivaar grew. At the end of 2004, Parivaar could purchase its own land to develop its permanent campus called Parivaar Ashram. Parivaar’s mission and theme began to attract dedicated youth (many of whom were from rural areas and grassroots communities), and they joined Parivaar Ashram as resident workers and began to become bearers of this mission.

Vinayak Lohani has also used competencies of Parivaar in mentoring a large number of organizations in different parts of India, and has helped many of these organizations to reach a certain maturity level. He has helped them to source funds, build teams, and have good management practices for their long-term future. He has made many valuable contributions to strengthening of mnay grassroots organisations through the wonderful platform Caring Friends ( www.caringfriends.in ) of which he has been an integral part for many years.

On Vinayak Lohani and Parivaar, many academic case-studies have been authored dealing with grassroots social entrepreneurship. These cases have been taught and discussed at various B-Schools in India. Best-selling author Rashmi Bansal's book 'I have a Dream' has an entire chapter on Vinayak Lohani and the initial phase of Parivaar. He is also regularly invited by various academic and social forums to speak about his experience of creating Parivaar and on the theme of grassroots organisation-building. He has delivered lectures at IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, IIM Indore, XLRI Jamshedpur, CLSA Mumbai, Infosys Leadership Institute, Morgan Stanley Hong Kong, Hay Group, and many other eminent companies and academic institutions. In 2010 Indian IT company Mastek conferred the 'Spirit of Mastek' Award on him. In 2011, Goverment of India's Ministry of Women and Child Development invited him to the membership of the department's Task Force to review past Government schemes and formulate new ones, and he is one of the very few persons from the Non-Governmental / civil society sector from the entire country to be inducted into it.