In Malayalam language, ‘Uravu’ means a spring, a source of streams and rivers, source of life, source of creativity.

The core idea that led to the inception of Uravu was that revitalization of indigenous knowledge and consistent scientific upgradation of the productive skills of rural people through appropriate technologies were necessary for rectifying many mistakes in the lopsided, dominant development pattern and striving for sustainability in development.

From its inception, the activities of Uravu were interventions aimed at improving the lives of downtrodden social groups, the traditional rural artisans and the Indigenous People, especially the women among them, in the hilly Wayanad district In Kerala state where Uravu is located. Wayanad is the least developed within the state in terms of food security, healthcare, education and industrialization. The inequities in the dominant development model are most evident here in the miserable living conditions of the Indigenous People -- over 90 per cent of tribal families in Wayanad remain landless and the majority live below the poverty line.
The Vision

Access and control over natural resources is key to the well being of several rural communities and the Indigenous People. However, deforestation, environmental degradation and abandonment of food farming for the sake of cash cropping under the pulls of globalization have by now seriously diminished the resource base of most of the rural occupational groups, threatening their livelihood security. The substitution of traditional small-scale commodity production based on locally available, agro-based raw materials with the factory system of production has caused much unemployment, especially among the rural artisan communities.

Re-establishing the control of rural communities over natural resources, production technologies and market processes and bringing back these marginalized social groups to the mainstream of the society is a critical development challenge. It is also essential that any effort in this direction should be truly participatory and based on continuous upgradation of local knowledges, technologies and skills. It is with this vision that Uravu began its development interventions.