SRSP is the largest non profit organization working in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Federally Administrated Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Since its inception in 1989 , the organization works with grass roots communities and includes them in the development process.

At the heart of the RSP approach is the belief that marginalized communities and disadvantaged people have within them the capacity for self help. This is illustrated by the strong ties of reciprocity, social networks and many instances of collective action witnessed in our society which communities tap in times of adversity or for collective good. The RSP idea is based on the question: Can this capacity for self help be used for their development, reducing poverty and improving the quality of life of our people. The RSP’s, based on evidence and experience, are convinced that an organization which is flexible, responsive, adaptive and learning and accountable can build trust with the communities and can do this effectively. The RSPs, as catalyst organizations, are modeled to play this role.

SRSP builds both the capacity of the community leaders and organizations and works through them. Its long run vision is to create institution of the people which are downwardly accountable to their basic members and which have the capacity to undertake development on their own initiative. All its projects and programmes are designed to have maximum community input in design, implementation and monitoring and evaluation.

SRSP is committed to change; but it believes that change is only sustainable if it has wider ownership in the society and all stakeholders and brought on board. SRSP believes that by building awareness and competencies and empowerment within the communities it would ensure access of the communities to quality services, give them a voice and bring change in inequitable political and social structures that marginalize them.

SRSP is committed to gender equality and has put in place a gender policy which ensures that all of its staff and communities irrespective of their gender have equal opportunities and benefit from its p-programmes and activities.
SRSP does not have a project approach to development. It believes that in complex environments and chaotic situation with poor information, in which it operates ,an organizational approach to development works best. The organizational approach to development builds both the programmes and organizational structures necessary to implement them through interactions and learning in the field rather than building them as blue prints. Even after projects it implement end, the Core is retained to retain trust and relationship with communities on a long term basis. SRSP has built an endowment with hard earned assistance from the government and its own work to support such a commitment

SRSP works on a scale. It believes that the issues of poverty can only be addressed if we work on a scale and make an impact.

SRSP believes that the government has the largest outreach and resources to address issues of poverty. It therefore goes the extra mile to work with government. But this is never done at the expense of its autonomy and independence.

SRSP and Legal Empowerment

SRSP is implementing a wide range of development and humanitarian programmes in different district of KP in partnership with government and international donors. Since November 2011 SRSP is implementing “Legal Empowerment Project” in 3 districts of KP with technical and financial assistance of “Foundations Open Society Institute -Pakistan”. The project aims at improving access to justice for the most marginalized and disadvantaged communities. For this purpose community based paralegals have been identified and trained who are providing basic legal services to their communities. The paralegals are supervised by a team of skilled head paralegals and a legal adviser. Free legal aid , linkage development and navigating authorities are integral part of SRSP’s Legal Empowerment Project.