Sahakarmi Samaj
How it began, and how Narad Sharma shaped its direction.
This page summarizes the founding story and Narad Sharma’s role in building an organization rooted in community-centered transformation.
Founding vision
Sahakarmi Samaj was formed to support communities through long-term accompaniment, deep listening, and collective problem-solving rather than short-term, externally driven interventions.
Narad Sharma’s role
Narad Sharma provided leadership in shaping values, building teams, mentoring facilitators, and keeping the organization grounded in dignity, participation, and trust in community capacity.
Approach & practice
The work emphasized reflection, learning through experience, and strengthening local leadership so communities could own both their challenges and their solutions.
Continuing the legacy
The foundation exists to preserve that spirit and support future generations through scholarships, publications, and initiatives that continue people-centered work.
Narad Sharma’s Work & Legacy
Narad Sharma was a pioneering thinker and practitioner in community-centered development, best known as a founder of Sahakarmi Samaj and a leading architect of the FEST (Facilitation for Empowerment and Social Transformation) approach. His work reshaped how development is understood and practiced moving away from top-down intervention toward processes rooted in listening, dignity, and collective agency.
At the heart of his philosophy was a simple but powerful belief: real change must grow from within communities themselves. Through Sahakarmi Samaj, he helped cultivate spaces where people could reflect on their own realities, identify priorities, and take ownership of their futures. The FEST approach became a living framework for this work, guiding facilitators to walk beside communities rather than ahead of them.
Over decades, this way of working influenced grassroots movements across Nepal and beyond, particularly in marginalized and remote regions. Narad Sharma’s legacy endures not only in institutions and publications, but in the countless individuals and communities who learned to trust their own voice. The Narad Sharma Memorial Foundation exists to preserve, practice, and pass forward this way of working so that future generations may continue the path he began.