Our Name

Our Name

The name “The Ramabai India Project” is in honor of two great Indian women, both of who shared the same name: Ramabai Ranade (1863 – 1924) and Pandita Ramabai (1858 – 1922). Both these women were great social reformers, focusing on the need for girls’ education and the overall uplift of females in India.

During that time, females had a very low status in Indian society; not much higher than livestock. Girls were not allowed to attend school. They were forcibly married off at young ages to old men (often before puberty), and spent their lives in forced domestic and sexual servitude. Both of these great women spent their lives fighting to end the practice of child marriage and to get girls educated.

They established schools for girls, and fought for the right of women to attend universities, to become doctors, educators or whatever else they aspired to. In doing so, they rapidly helped bring India out of the dark ages and into the modern world. In just a little over forty years after the death of these two women, modern India elected its first female prime minister! India’s come a long way since the days of these two female reformers. But much more work remains to be done. In many parts of rural India, girls suffer the same fate today as hundreds of years ago.

Carrying On The Vision

We exist to serve and uplift this new generation of Indian children. Girls are top priority, but of course we provide equal educational opportunities to boys as well. These are children forgotten and left behind by society – the same ones Ramabai Ranade and Pandita Ramabai would serve if they were alive today!