Prerna Sansthan was established in the year 1994. Prerna Sansthan (People Right & Rural Education Network Advancement) is Rajasthan based Indian Handicrafts NGO. Today Prerna Sansthan is running 10 production centres supporting over 450 atisans. Women are involved right from the production of Handicrafts to the marketing. The working area of Prerna Sansthan has been the Barmer district. To begin with PRERNA wanted to work in an area that was remote, inaccessible and devoid of any facilities. Barmer is the second largest district of Rajasthan with a land area of 28,387 sq km. It is located at the western frontier bordering with Pakistan in the south-west, and surrounded by Jaisalmer district in the north-west, Jodhpur in the east, and Jalore district in the south-east and Gujarat state at its south. The district is a characteristic of beautiful culture, tradition and colourful lifestyle and festivals with smile on people's face fighting the arid conditions of the Great Indian Thar desert. As per 2011 census, the district has a population of 1,963,758 with more than 92 per cent of the population residing in 1,634 rural villages. In the past one decade Barmer has experienced a growth rate of 36.83 per cent. The present ratio of 896 females per 1000 males is an improvement from the past 891 in the 1991 census.
Despite scanty rain and dry climatic conditions, people are predominantly dependent on agriculture and animal husbandry with the children helping the family in farming and cattle rearing. Thus many children do not join school or drop out early. Frequent droughts and famine have become a part of life of the people. When there is a crop failure, the farmers are forced to take loan from the money lenders at high interest hoping to pay back the debts at the next harvest but if another drought follows, they again seek help from the money lenders and are again debts driven deep in to poverty. The cycle continues, never letting the poor farmers out of poverty. At times of unemployment the whole family migrates to other places including other states like Gujarat in search of job. The major crops cultivated are millets known by the name bajra, gowar, mun and moth. Of the total land area, 201,954 hectare is not available for cultivation, 28,523 hectares of land is under forest and 203,560 hectares of land are permanent pastures and other grazing land. It has a history of seven consecutive droughts and the latest year is affected by failure of monsoon. Many of them live in sparsely populated distantly located hamlets called dhani among the sand dunes, where there are no basic facilities like roads, transportation or communication facilities, health, potable water supply, electricity etc. The difficult geographical terrain entails very high cost of providing basic services. Yet another major hazard in the way of village development is the social evils and cultural practices. Forced marriage, female infanticide, child marriage and atrocities against women are a part of the prevailing feudal society. The purda (veil) system keeps the women under veil and restricted to the four walls of the house. Women have a low profile in the society and discouraged for education, health and freedom of economy and decision making. The major communities of the district are Rajputs, Brahmins, Baniyas, Jats, Muslims and the scheduled castes Meghwal, Nayak, Sansi and scheduled tribes the Bhils. Untouchability is very much prevalent in the urban and rural areas alike.
