A professional educator, philanthropist and mother, Hong Kong-based Rachna Rathore welcomed the year of 2015 with an epiphany that would forever alter the destinies of thousands of Rajput women. For all the years that she had glimpsed into the lives of professional, working Rajput women, Rathore very correctly inferred the lack of a common platform that would unify all these women together. The scattered format of the existing network structures largely accounted for their limited networking potential.
In order to bridge the divide between this loose network of women, Rathore formulated an establishment known as the Rajput Mothers Foundation, popularly known as RAMG. RAMG started with being a small Facebook group of Rajput women from different walks of life coming together in order to support one another’s professional pursuits and endeavours. Clearly, this platform served the need of the hour and what was once an informal cohort on Facebook soon made a meteoric rise and entered a whole new league. Today, Rathore’s foundation stands as a ten thousand member-large organisation with 12 local chapters in India, as well as international chapters in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and South East Asia. In her own words, “Today, RAMG has become a volunteer-driven non-profit organisation dedicated to women and young girls. Working with the women of the community, offering them opportunities through education, community help programs, advocacy and talent campaigns. The Foundation exists to promote the full and equal participation of women and girls in all aspects of the society wherein they motivate and support their fellow members to drive a measurable change towards the future.”
A significant step taken by RAMG to promote creative entrepreneurship has been the ART 10 programme, a prestigious event that recognises several artists and painters in the Rajput community. The pilot season of ART 10 took off in Jaipur, under the gracious patronage of Rajmata Sahiba Padmini Devi ji as its chief guest. Apart from being a highly successful event, it also helped two artists, namely, Himantika Kumari and Devyani Rathore to gain showcasing access at Harvard University.
Following this in 2018, RAMG organised a cultural event called Maruni in Jodhpur, which was presided over by Maharani Sahiba Hemlata Raje. Maruni was a first of its kind event in the city to exclusively exhibit women in their various creative talents and innovative ideas towards positive social change. Collections from this event were donated for the education of underprivileged Rajput girls.
ART 10 and Maruni highlight only two out of RAMG’s twelve national chapters and counting. Rathore emphasises on a significant amount of energy being directed by RAMG to create tailor-made programs that cater to the specific profiles of its respective chapters. Its overarching motives have evolved to facilitate broad-based educational and talent campaigns that help in increasing local access to education and developmental resources.
RAMG’s chapters in Mumbai. Delhi and Gujarat have been running successful educational programs for the girl child. Rathore also reports the outstanding success of medical camps devised by RAMG in some remote villages of Rajasthan and Gujarat. She finds it reassuring to receive positive responses from the rural communities that participated in these camps; and looks forward to expanding such initiatives in other parts of the country as well.
Before concluding, Rathore mentions the democratic and community-centric values of RAMG that enable it to function as an egalitarian organisation that promotes women’s leadership as well as the maximisation of female agency in every regard that it has been able to procedurally explore thus far.
In order to become a member of RAMG, kindly visit http://rajputmothersfoundation.org/ or write to info@rajputmothersfoundation.org. RAMG is open to women of all ages and has expanded to RAMG girls as well, which is its youth wing for its younger members. On behalf of Rachna Rathore, Rajputana Collective invites every Rajput girl and woman reading this feature to join this unifying cause.