Vithi Foundation — Pathways for Women, Youth and Climate in Bihar

Who We Are

Three friends started Vithi in 2025

Vithi Foundation was registered in January 2025 by Krish Raj, Shakila Khatoon and Priyaswara Bharti. The work started earlier than that. Krish and Priyaswara had been organising with young people in Bihar since 2018. We now work in three areas: women's dignity, youth leadership and climate.

In Muzaffarpur we work with Nomadic Tribes and De-notified Tribes (NT-DNT) communities. Colonial law once listed these communities as criminal. That label still affects how they are treated by services, schools and neighbours.

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Nomadic & De-notified Tribes · Women

Women's health and dignity

We have started working with women of Nomadic Tribes and De-notified Tribes communities in Muzaffarpur, on health, hygiene and dignity. We also want young people there to see the range of options open to them.

Youth leadership

Young people build leadership, teamwork, communication and volunteering by doing them, in learning spaces, youth meetings and projects where they hold real responsibility.

Climate work in the Kosi belt

Documentaries on flood resilience in Araria and Supaul, a youth climate consultation in Patna that fed into the Bihar Youth Statement, and sustainability in how we run our own work.

Kahani on Camera

Young people across Bihar are learning to make films, and then making them. The facilitators are young people too, including students of cinema at FTII and SRFTI.

Young people seated around a projector at a Vithi film screening

Diyara Project · Supported by Magadh Foundation

Young people making their own films

Through the Diyara Project we run sessions with young people across districts of Bihar. Its largest part is Kahani on Camera, a filmmaking workshop. Participants learn storytelling and craft, then make films about what they choose.

The films will be screened at a film festival in January 2027. We hope the project does more than teach filmmaking. We want young people to look at the issues around them, and to see creative and professional work as something open to them.

About the Diyara Project

How We Work

How we work

Understand first

We start by understanding the community

In Muzaffarpur we are working with resource persons to understand the community and its context. We are planning a baseline survey, so that what we do next is based on evidence rather than guesswork.

Young people lead

Young people lead the sessions

Our filmmaking facilitators are young people themselves. They lead sessions with support from us, which is how leadership is actually learned.

Practise what we ask for

We cut waste at our own events

At Prakritika and at our first anniversary we used appliqué art instead of flex banners, and old sarees to decorate our stalls. We would rather cut plastic and waste in our own work than only ask others to.

Partners & Supporters

Who supports our work

Magadh

Magadh Foundation — supporting the Diyara Project

Purpose

Purpose India — flood resilience documentaries

Bodhi

Bodhi Fellowship, Bihar Development Collective

YuWaah

YuWaah / UNICEF India — LCOY Patna consultation

Moments

From our work this year

The LCOY youth climate consultation in Patna, our stall at Prakritika, and our first anniversary, with banners stitched in appliqué instead of printed on flex.