Development Focus is a development organization that focuses on ensuring that every child, even the very poor, completes primary education. To achieve this, attention is focused on making sure that the education offered is quality education that is relevant to these children who are from the last 10 to 20% of the socio-economic strata.

Apart from Primary education, Development Focus seeks to promote livelihood skill training for youth from poor background. The objective of the training is that these youth can earn substantial income on a sustainable basis.

Development Focus does not implement projects directly but works through like-minded partners. The role of Development Focus is to bring conceptual clarity and build the capacity of these partners to implement projects and programmes effectively. Facilitation as a true partner is the main objective.

The idea of Development Focus was born over an informal discussion in the perfect surroundings of “Lalbagh”, botanical gardens in Bangalore in 2006. Development Focus Development focus continues to be a capacity building and facilitating organization.

A just and humane society that ensures equal opportunities for quality life to every citizen of India through relevant and quality education to the most marginalized.

Development Focus promotes relevant and quality education for the marginalized sections of society by engaging with and building the capacity of civil society actors such that it leads to literate, egalitarian and empowered communities.

•         Hope

•         Trust

•         Commitment

•         Accountability

•         Transparency

1. To identify and strengthen civil society actors to address the educational “needs” of socio-economically marginalized (last 10-20%) sections of society. 

2. To ensure that “Education” is inclusive of moral values, life skills, livelihood skills and appropriate technologies to improve quality of life. 

3. To empower and concientize communities to claim their entitlements 

4. To facilitate social, economic and political empowerment within the community towards effective local governance. 

5. To pro-actively engage with the State to make education more relevant and egalitarian.

1. To work with credible locally based organizations.
   
   
2. Establish State level forums of like-minded organizations. The forum plays an important role in identifying problems, developing programmes, identifying capacity building needs, organizing learning tours and actively participates in lobby and advocacy.
   
   
3. Creates cluster of 7 to 10 organizations in a specific geographic location (2 or 3 districts). Each cluster partner has specific competencies and these complement each other in the cluster. The programmes are holistic and have a wide impact.
   
   
4. Project implementation by individual organization.
   
   
5. Linkages with other organizations in the country are established to access competence and build the capacity of civil society in relevant implementation areas.

The organisation is made up of: Board of Trustees, an Advisory Committee that consists of subject matter specialists and the staff team headed by the Team Leader. The operational office is in Bangalore, Karnataka. The office for CATALIS is in Bhuvaneshwar, Orissa.

The programme team is composed of

       º Programme Coordinator

       º Project Officers

       º Consultants

The team for CATALIS is composed of

       º Chief Functionary

       º Field Coordinator cum Trainer

       º External Resource Persons

The programme support team has

       º Part time accountant

      º Office Assistant