Auroville Village Action Group

Last updated

Auroville Village Action Group
Founded1983 (1983)
Founded at Auroville, India
Type Community organization
Focuspoverty eradication, gender equality, caste equality, empowerment
HeadquartersIrumbai, India
Area served
Vanur block, Tamil Nadu, India
Directors
Anbu Sironmani, Jerald Moris
Website www.villageaction.in

The Auroville Village Action Group (AVAG) is a non-governmental organization based in Irumbai which is situated close to Auroville in the Villupuram district, located in Tamil Nadu, India. It is committed to grass roots community building together with the local villages in the Villupuram district on different development areas, namely community development, economic development, capacity building, and psychosocial support. [1] In all those four areas, the ultimate goal is to "realize the inherent capability of human beings for self-empowerment [and to] provide the proper resources to build a healthy life". [2]

Contents

Founded in 1983, it nowadays incorporates micro finance projects, capacity building trainings and seminars, psychological and physical health initiatives, livelihood trainings and social enterprise trainings, caste integration exchange programs, and exposure field trips. [3]

Mission and values

AVAG collaborates with all sectors of society to bring about a holistic and participatory village transformation where the villagers are the main acting force. AVAG sees its main role as enabling the beneficiaries to become more self-empowered. It places relationships between human beings and their behaviors, traditions and prejudices at the foundation of its programs and work with villagers, following the central goal of gender and cast equality. Solidarity and cooperation are also important values to AVAG. [4]

Structure

In July 2000, the Auroville Village Action Trust developed out of AVAG's diverse activities in order to them better. Since then, AVAG is a part of this trust. [5]

Field work is carried out by a team of 6 development workers who themselves come from Vanur block and are deeply familiar with the ground realities. They receive special training and are often the direct link between the trustees and direct beneficiaries. Additionally, 2 vocational trainers and a team of 8 support staff make up the rest of the AVAG team. AVAG regularly hosts students, interns and volunteers from abroad who assist in all aspects of programs delivery. The immediate beneficiaries are the members of the women and men self-help groups (SHGs), who usually meet twice a month to discuss loans and personal issues or to receive training. Every SHG elects an animator and two representatives each month. [4]

Programs

[6]

Eco-friendly products for villagers

A store is located on AVAG premises and provides access to affordable echo-friendly technologies suitable for rural communities, such as spirulina supplements, energy powder, CFL bulbs, activated EM, low-cost water filters, and solar-powered devices. [7]

Social enterprise initiatives and livelihood training programs

AVAG offers a large number of trainings, and creates self-employment opportunities for members of women's SHGs. Together with the Sustainable Enterprise Development in the Auroville Bioregion (SEDAB) project, [8] which is part of a wider Integral Rural Development vision for the bioregion, the goal is to provide sustainable livelihood options for women in villages in and around Auroville. Several different products are being produced and sold as part of the social enterprise initiative, such as clothes and accessories and crocheted life style products, like toys and lamps, and accessories (under AVAG's own brand Aval), herbal beauty products, spirulina capsules (under the brand Surya. [9] )

Funding

AVAG has varying supporters, also relying on individual donors. The BMZ gives AVAG a notable supporting sum each year under the Verein zur Förderung der Auroville-Region (VFAVR), affiliated with AVI Germany. They also supported the issue of the AVVAI scheme. Other funding partners are the Village Outreach Society of Canada and the United Kingdom, who have supported Eco Femme, AVAG's exchange programs and the solar lantern project of the EcoLife store. World Dignity, Inc. (WDI), [10] an organization working internationally to build on the strength, resilience, culture and wisdom of all people, created the AVAG/WDI Education Revolving Fund to help financially poor club members pay for their children's higher education through loans or grants together with AVAG. [11] Motherson Sumi Systems Limited has given a 1 Crore grant towards a project increasing access to education for poor girls in June 2015 as part of their Corporate social responsibility (CSR) program. [12]

History

[11] In 1983, AVAG was founded by Bhavana Dee Decew "to act as a bridge between [Auroville] and immediate neighbours." [4] At that time, a few programs with children and women were started in the villages surrounding Auroville. Gradually, professional social workers joined and turned AVAG into an official developmental project. With OXFAM India's help starting 1991, AVAG expanded its scope in terms of working areas and adjointed activities and field staff could be recruited and trained. The Commonwealth Human Ecology Council (CHEC) of the Overseas Development Agency (ODA)-UK, later called the Department for International Development (DfID), also supported AVAG so that its work expanded further. Thanks to the DfID's funding, the Women's Federation and the men's groups could also be established in 1999. When the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami hit Tamil Nadu, AVAG experienced a major financial and labor crisis. Many activities had to be reduced or shut down but it was sustained with the help of the women and men SHGs and the leaders of the villages. ACDC also supported AVAG's work in the tsunami hit areas. ACDC continued to support AVAG until 2009. In 2010, the social enterprise initiative got started with the assistance of the Sustainable Enterprise Development in the Auroville Bioregion (SEDAB), scheduled to run until the middle of 2016. The BMZ project set up a revolving fund with the German government's support, mainly for enabling the distribution of grants to poor girls for obtaining a better education. Currently, AVAG is working on setting up education programs for adolescent girls and boys and marketing its products more. Also, flood relief after the hundred-year 2015 South Indian floods [13] in the Villupuram district is still going on. [14]

Affiliations

AVAG is closely working together with people in Auroville, for certain events such as flood relief help and different entrepreneurial projects inside of Auroville. Some of AVAG's women stitch disposable cloth pads for EcoFemme, [15] they have also recently started to assist in stitching scarves made by The Colours of Nature [16] One different project which AVAG is working together with Auroville on right now is the Paalam project, Paalam meaning bridge in Tamil, which is a bioregional and Auroville youth leadership program and "aims to provide training in sustainable village development through a programme that would include exposure to Auroville and its ideals and to model village development throughout Tamil Nadu." [17] Once a year, a student from the American University of Paris (AUP) joins AVAG for a few weeks to assist it in the communications sector. [18] AVAG is associated with the National Australia Bank, the Indian Bank and the ICICI Bank for the microfinancing and SHG loans. They send a mobile bank to AVAG twice a week and issue the loans to the SHG women. The German BMZ is supporting one or two young volunteers coming to AVAG via Auroville International (AVI) Deutschland e.V., a non-profit organization which is amongst other things a volunteer sending agency via weltwärts, each year for a year's duration. [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

The Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) is a global association of people and communities (ecovillages) dedicated to living "sustainable plus" lives by restoring the land and adding more to the environment than is taken. Network members share ideas and information, transfer technologies and develop cultural and educational exchanges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Auroville</span> Experimental township in Villupuram district and Puducherry, South India

Auroville is an experimental township in Viluppuram district, mostly in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, with some parts in the Union Territory of Pondicherry in India. It was founded in 1968 by Mirra Alfassa and designed by architect Roger Anger.

The Austrian Social Service is part of the Austrian Service Abroad founded by Dr. Andreas Maislinger in 1998. It offers the possibility to substitute the compulsory military service in Austria with a 10-months service abroad and provides a platform for volunteering services.

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, often simply shortened to GIZ, is the main German development agency. It is headquartered in Bonn and Eschborn and provides services in the field of international development cooperation and international education work. The organization's self-declared goal is to deliver effective solutions that offer people better prospects and sustainably improve their living conditions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development</span> Regulatory agency of regional rural banks in India

National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is an apex regulatory body for overall regulation of regional rural banks and apex cooperative banks in India. It is under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Finance, Government of India. The bank has been entrusted with "matters concerning policy, planning, and operations in the field of credit for agriculture and other economic activities in rural areas in India". NABARD is active in developing and implementing financial inclusion.

Community Energy Scotland is an independent Scottish charity established in 2008 that provides advice and financial support for renewable energy projects developed by community groups in Scotland. The stated aim of Community Energy Scotland is 'to build confidence, resilience and wealth at community level in Scotland through sustainable energy development'.

The Earth Embassy is a sustainable design, architecture and eco-business group dedicated to developing, building and promoting environmentally sound homes and community centered on organic farms, renewable energy and small business incubation hubs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Workforce Development Institute</span>

Workforce Development Institute (WDI) is headquartered in Albany, New York, and has 10 regional offices throughout New York State.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tree Aid</span> UK non-governmental organisation operating in Africa

Tree Aid is an international development non-governmental organisation which focuses on working with people in the Sahel region in Africa to tackle poverty and the effects of climate change by growing trees, improving people's incomes, and restoring and protecting land. It is a registered charity in the UK. Tree Aid has offices in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in Mali, in Ethiopia, in Ghana, and in Bristol, United Kingdom. It currently has programmes running in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali and Niger. Areas of Tree Aid's work include forest governance, natural resource management, food security and nutrition, and enterprise development. Tree Aid reported in their annual impact report 2019/20, that since 1987 it had grown 22 million trees, worked with 1.8 million people, and supported 36,350 people in enterprise groups.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tamil Nadu Forest Department</span>

The Madras Forest Department, now officially, Tamil Nadu Forest Department, is a government department of Tamil Nadu. The department is responsible for managing all the protected areas and forests plus environmental and wildlife related issues of Tamil Nadu state in South India. The objective of the Tamil Nadu Forest Department is to conserve biodiversity and eco-systems of forests and wilderness areas to ensure water security and food security of the state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pragya</span>

Pragya is a development organisation which addresses the needs of people living in areas such as high- altitude regions and areas emerging from conflict. Pragya implements projects in the high- altitude Himalayan regions of India and Nepal, and the highlands and savannahs of East Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Zigen Fund</span> American non-profit

The Zigen Fund promotes human-centered sustainable development. It is a U.S. registered 501(C)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization founded by Pat Yang in 1988. A sister organization, China Zigen Rural Education and Development Association, is among the first fully registered nonprofit organization in China in 1995. The two organizations cooperate to support grassroots efforts of the impoverished people for life improvement and sustainable local development. Other Zigen sister organizations, in Taiwan (1990), Hong Kong are also locally registered as non-profit organizations. The network of Zigen organizations conduct fundraising and outreach activities locally, and collaborate on program support in China.

India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF) is a Maryland, US-based 501(c) (3) tax exempt, non-profit organization that supports impoverished people in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. IDRF's programs span all over India from Jammu and Kashmir to Tamil Nadu, and from Gujarat to Arunachal Pradesh, Nepal and more recently Sri Lanka. Since its inception in 1988, IDRF has disbursed $34 million in grants to various developmental programs pertaining to areas like: education, health, women's empowerment, eco-friendly development, good governance, and disaster relief/rehabilitation.

Khayer Khal village is situated under the Maynaguri block at "Padamati I Gram Panchayat" in Jalpaiguri District, West Bengal. Its length round covers around 4-4.5km. Its total population is 2471 of which 1315 are male and 1156 female, occupying 560 households. The total families are 282 and BPL families are 237.{all data in 2006*)

The Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojana (RGMVP) is the flagship programme of Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust, a registered non-profit institution, working for poverty reduction, women empowerment and rural development in Uttar Pradesh, India since 2002. RGMVP believes that "the poor have a strong desire and innate ability to overcome poverty". It aims to organise poor rural women into community institutions and promotes financial inclusion, health-care, livelihood enhancement, education and environment.

Kulandei Francis is an activist, social worker, and the founder of the NGO Integrated Village Development Project in Tamil Nadu, India. He was one of six recipients of the Magsaysay Award in 2012 for "his profound faith in community energies, and his sustained programs in pursuing the holistic economic empowerment of thousands of women and their families in rural India".

The National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) is a poverty alleviation project implemented by the Ministry of Rural Development, a branch of the Government of India. This plan is focused on promoting self-employment and the organization of rural poor. The idea behind this program is to organize the poor into Self Help Groups (SHGs) and make them capable of self-employment. In 1999, after restructuring the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) launched Swarnajayanti Grameen Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY) to focus on promoting self-employment among the rural poor. SGSY is now remodelled to form NRLM, thereby plugging the shortfalls of the SGSY programme. This program was launched in 2011 with a budget of $5.1 billion and is one of the flagship programs of the Ministry of Rural Development. This is one of the world's most prominent initiatives to improve the livelihood of the poor. This program is supported by the World Bank with a credit of $1 Billion. The program was succeeded by Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana on 25 September 2015.

The Centre of Ecology & Rural Development (CERD) is an Indian organisation that is part of the Pondicherry Science Forum. It was exclusively formed for taking up meaningful interventions in Health, Sanitation, Natural Resource Management, Energy, Watershed management and ICT for development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uganda National Entrepreneurship Development Institute</span>

The Uganda National Entrepreneurship Development Institute (UNEDI) is a privately owned national resource development institution in Uganda whose focus area is entrepreneurship education, training and research. The institute provides training techniques, faculty support, consultancy, research as well as teaching and development of entrepreneurship training materials.

Eco Femme is a women-led social enterprise in Tamil Nadu, India, that produces organic washable cloth pads. Eco Femme was founded in 2009 in Auroville by Kathy Walkling and Jessamijn Miedema who started by producing, applying and selling these washable menstrual pads in Auroville. The aim was to produce pads that are both affordable and free of plastic. They were also interested in designing a sustainable alternative to disposable pads for the women of India as well as setting up self sustaining initiatives in cloth pad production for women from the neighbouring villages. All commercially sold pads are organically certified under GOTS and Eco Femme is the first in this space to have achieved this certification. The cloth pads are mostly made out of organic cotton and can last up to 75 washes or for three to five years from the time of purchasing. These pads are sold in more than 20 countries across the world. By 2022, Eco Femme has distributed over 1 million cloth pads which consequently saved more than 75 million single use disposable pads from reaching landfills.

References

  1. ↑ "About AVAG". AVAG.
  2. ↑ "AVAG's goals". AVAG. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
  3. ↑ "AVAG's tools". AVAG. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 "Annual Report 2011-2012". AVAG.
  5. ↑ "information on the Auroville Village Action Trust". auroville.org.
  6. ↑ "Women's Empowerment at Auroville Village Action Group". Lesley Branagan.
  7. ↑ "EcoLife Stores". Aneri Patel.
  8. ↑ "Sustainable Enterprise Development in the Auroville Bioregion blog". SEDAB.
  9. ↑ "SEDAB Surya production". SEDAB.
  10. ↑ "WDI webpage". World Dignity, Inc. Archived from the original on 2 April 2016. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
  11. 1 2 Auroville Village Action Group (2016). Annual Report 2014-2015.
  12. ↑ "Article on Promoting Poor Girl's Education In the Villages". Auroville Today. Archived from the original on 25 September 2021. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
  13. ↑ "Chennai floods". Times of India.
  14. ↑ "Newsletter January 2016, article Flood Reliefs". AVAG. Archived from the original on 8 July 2016. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
  15. ↑ "EcoFemme stitched by AVAG". EcoFemme. Archived from the original on 30 January 2016. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
  16. ↑ "The Colours of Nature information". EcoFemme.
  17. ↑ "Article on the 'Paalam' project". Auroville Today. Archived from the original on 27 January 2021. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
  18. ↑ "AUP's working partners in Auroville". AUP.
  19. ↑ "AVI-D volunteer service". AVI-D. Archived from the original on 24 January 2016. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.