Prema Gopalan was a co-founder with Sheela Patel of SPARC in 1984. She started SSP in 1993, aiming to put rural poor women at the center of decentralized and democratic methods of self-management. SSP functioned as a self-education network within SPARC until it (in association with the Government of Maharashtra) redesigned and implemented a widespread community participation strategy across 1200 villages in the earthquake-hit districts of Latur and Osmanabad. Gopalan has also worked with support efforts following the 2001 Gujarat earthquake, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami and floods in Bihar and Kerala.