Jithin Nedumala

Founder

Jithin Nedumala is the founder of Make A Difference (2006)[1], an Indian non-profit working on education and women & children from Bengaluru.

Jithin C Nedumala is an Indian social entrepreneur and a co-founder of Make A Difference (MAD), a volunteer-run organisation that works with children living in shelter homes and orphanages in India. He founded it in 2006 at the age of nineteen, with five others, and later became its chief executive.

Make A Difference is registered in Kochi and works with children in shelter homes across more than twenty Indian cities. Its programmes are built on the idea that children in institutional care need support in emotional resilience, life skills, learning, qualifications and readiness for work if they are to escape intergenerational poverty.

Career

Nedumala began teaching boys at a YMCA home for poor boys in Kochi while in his second year at college. In 2006 he and five others - Jithin John Varghese, Santosh Warrier, Kavin K K, Gloria Benny and Sujith Varkey - founded Make A Difference, recruiting the first group of about twenty volunteers through a presentation in Kochi, which became the organisation's first chapter.

The organisation grew into a network of volunteer chapters in cities across India. Nedumala has spoken about its work at the Harvard Kennedy School, the Indian School of Business, several Indian Institutes of Management and at TEDx events.

Recognition

Nedumala was elected an Ashoka Fellow in 2017. Before the age of 24 he had received the Ashoka Global Youth Social Entrepreneur award, the Karmaveer Puraskar, the Cordes Fellowship, a Dasra peer grant and a Youth ActionNet fellowship.

Make A Difference itself was one of the organisations visited by Michelle Obama during her visit to India in 2010, won the eNGO Challenge Award for communications and outreach in 2014, was named Website of the Year India in the charities category in 2014, and was one of four Indian non-governmental organisations chosen to launch the Queen's Young Leaders programme in 2014.[2][3][4][5]

Make A Difference

Make A Difference (MAD) works with children in shelter homes and orphanages, supporting their education, transition to adulthood and life skills. It mobilises young volunteers across multiple Indian cities.

Make A Difference reports the following, on its own site: