Who we are
A Section 8 not-for-profit company, established under the Companies Act, 2013, based in Assam.
Jonaki Learning and Development Foundation is a nonprofit that exists to address a simple but urgent problem: the informal, everyday ways young people once absorbed their cultural and ecological heritage — in the household, the village, side by side with elders — are being disrupted by urbanisation, migration, and the pace of contemporary life.
The knowledge itself isn't gone. It's held in the hands and memories of living practitioners, and the next generation is still curious enough to make it their own. We bridge the distance between urban and young people and the living traditions of their ancestors. In a world that moves fast, we slow down to listen to the rhythm of the loom, to trace the patterns woven for generations into the fabric of society and to help youth to find themselves in that continuity.
We are creating structured spaces, occasions and opportunities for that encounter: the place, the time, and the permission for a young person to sit with something old and decide what they want to do with it. We will work through three physical learning spaces and two flagship programmes, with an initial focus on Assam and a long-term ambition to expand across the Northeast.
About Jonaki LDF
Our Vision
A society in which young people are rooted in their cultural heritage, confident in their abilities, and actively shaping their own futures and communities.
Our Mission
Jonaki LDF creates inclusive physical and programmatic spaces where young people, communities, and artisans explore heritage, build transferable skills, and develop confidence and agency. We work at the intersection of ecology, craft, culture, and global futures, creating environments where people are able to be.
"Every person carries a light of their own."
Why "Jonaki"
Jonaki means firefly in Assamese. A firefly's light isn't a performance, it doesn't need an audience, a stage, or permission to glow. It carries its own light, and is most visible when many gather together in the dark.
What's often missing isn't the light itself, but the safe, unconditional conditions in which it can be noticed — first by themselves, then by their community.
Our Approach
Three ideas that shape everything we do:
Heritage as a living resource
Not an archive behind glass. Crafts, oral traditions, and ecological knowledge are living tools for the present, encountered through doing, making, and meeting.
Learning by doing, learning by meeting
Every part of our model rests on the right of young people to simply be, without having to perform, produce, or improve in order to belong.
Belonging before becoming
Direct experience with materials and environments, and relationships with the artisans and elders who carry that knowledge.
Our Team
The people behind Jonaki LDF
Team profiles coming soon.
Compliance
Legal & regulatory information
Registration details and compliance documents coming soon.
Want to know more?
We're happy to talk to partners, funders, and anyone curious about the work.