About Us
Our journey began with a few of our co-founders volunteering at Kozhikode Medical College and helping patients and their families.
It was in the 2010s, still teenagers, that we started asking: what if more young people engaged in volunteering, social service, and active citizenship?
With the National Service Scheme as our platform, we travelled across Kerala conducting training and motivational sessions to encourage young people to volunteer. That’s how the seeds of The Ignite Foundation were sown.
About The Ignite Foundation
If You are new here
The Ignite Foundation is a non-profit organization started as a community in 2010, transitioned to an organization in 2015, and registered in 2021 in Kerala. The Ignite Foundation works on strengthening the ecosystem for changemakers and social entrepreneurs in Kerala and offers capacity development programs for aspiring changemakers. We encourage and support young people to take up social and environmental issues in their community and lead social transformation. The Ignite Foundation has built a strong foundation of experiential learning programs for youth leadership grounded in the values of active citizenship, sustainability, and equity.
We have designed a 4-level process for youth to start from volunteering to start their own organizations—NGOs, communities, and social enterprises. In 2024, we piloted Changemakers Ashram—a residential space for changemakers to ideate, build, and pilot social innovations to address problems faced by vulnerable communities.
Centre for Youth Impact and Training
In our formative years, we engaged youth through training and capacity development, nurturing a strong sense of social responsibility and active citizenship.
Over the years, we curated 1,900+ workshops and learning journeys, each lasting from half a day to two days.
Through these spaces, we shared stories, laughed together, and encouraged young people to imagine and shape their dreams.
School for Social Transformation
School for Social Transformation is the flagship program of The Ignite Foundation. With a duration of 6 months—with a pre-program online phase, 9-day offline experiential learning, and a 3–6 month mentorship process—youth become problem solvers in their community.
The program envisions transformation at three levels—participant transformation, host (where the program is hosted) community transformation, and home (where the participants are coming from) community transformation.
9 Editions 150+ │ changemakers 50+ │ changemaking Projects │1 Lakh People impacted
Changemakers Ashram
The Changemakers Ashram is envisioned as a hub for nurturing hyper-local leaders, running small experiments on social innovation, and a focal point of The Ignite Foundations Initiatives
A space for changemakers to come together, and a co-learning space for the stakeholders of The Ignite Foundation.
Changemakers Ashram hosts
Changemaker residency│ Changemakers retreat│ School for Social Transformation │Winter School on social entrepreneurship │The Great Indian Treasure Hunt│ Theatre for Climate Change
Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Social innovation and social enterprises put social mission first—the centre aims to support youth in building their organisations.
The Goal is to advance education for social change by building leadership capacity, strengthening teams, and developing knowledge systems for changemakers and social enterprises
Initiatives include Winter School on Social Entrepreneurship, Design Thinking Fellowship, and Social Hackathons.
