Dawa Jora

Co-founder

Dawa Jora is the co-founder of 17000 ft Foundation [1], an Indian non-profit working on education.

Dawa Jora is a Ladakhi businessman and a co-founder and director of the 17000 ft Foundation, a non-profit organisation that works to improve education in remote schools across Ladakh and, more recently, Sikkim.

The foundation describes him as its Ladakhi arm, crediting his knowledge of the region, his ability to reach very remote villages and his work mobilising local support as central to the organisation's standing in Ladakh.

Career

Jora is a businessman in Ladakh who was already supporting education and healthcare work in remote parts of the region before the foundation was established. He is a long-standing friend of Sujata Sahu and Sandeep Sahu, who conceived the organisation after trekking in the high mountains of Ladakh and seeing the condition of village schools.

The 17000 ft Foundation was set up in 2012 by Sujata Sahu with Sandeep Sahu and Dawa Jora. Its first work was the geo-mapping of more than 350 government schools in Leh district; from 2013 it introduced school libraries and a voluntourism programme.

The foundation has since built playgrounds, supplied classroom furniture and learning materials, trained teachers, and installed digital learning laboratories, known as DigiLabs, in more than 200 schools. It also publishes children's books in Bhoti, the local language.[2][3][4]

17000 ft Foundation

17000 ft Foundation was established in 2012 to transform the lives of marginalised high-altitude frontier communities. It works to improve access to and quality of education in the most inaccessible Indian Himalayan villages, currently reaching 450+ remote government schools across Ladakh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh with libraries, classroom furniture, digital learning labs and teacher support.

17000 ft Foundation reports the following, on its own site:

150,000+ children given access to quality education near their homes in Ladakh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh
Working in 450+ remote government schools
50% fall in dropout/migration in 17000ft adopted schools
30% average increase in enrolment in 17000ft adopted government schools