SHG/JLG/Farmers Club & Micro Finance
Self Help Groups are the main instruments of our organization for empowering women, developing leadership abilities among poor and the needy people, increasing school enrolments and improving nutrition. Our trust gives trainings to the women regarding setting up of self help groups on their own and provides them with documentation, information and teaching them about maintaining the accounts and accessing the procedures of the banks that might be useful to them. There are around 600 SHGs in Theni district.
Our organization has also started a Joint Liability Group (JLG) which is an informal group comprising of 5 individuals coming together for the purpose of availing bank loan on individual basis or through groups. JLG members provide support to each other in carrying out occupational and social activities. We have provided many awareness programs regarding health and hygiene, cleanliness environment and workshops regarding the banking procedures. We focus on the people with no employment opportunities and help in providing loan assistance to them so that it will allow the individuals who are living in poverty to work on becoming financially independent so they can work their way into better living conditions.
Nowadays many farmers are shifting farming to other professions due to insufficient financial protection. Therefore, we have also formed a Farmer's club which primarily works for the upliftment of agricultural based occupations.
To earn more profit from agriculture, our organization gives awareness to the farmers about a modern farming technique called POLY GREEN HOUSE farming. A Greenhouse is a framed structure covered with transparent material and which is large enough to grow crops under partially or fully controlled environmental conditions. It helps to get optimum growth and productivity. The yield may be 10-12 times higher than that of outdoor cultivation. There is no such difference between polyhouse and greenhouse. The greenhouse is the broad term, polyhouse is among the kinds of Greenhouse in which polyethylene is used as main material for construction. The durability of the Poly green house is more compared to other types of Greenhouse. Therefore, the individuals or all the members of an SHG involve themselves in cultivating through green house techniques.
We also conduct income generation training programs to empower poor people, especially women and teach them how to live an economically sustainable life. For this, we also provide loans on legal basis. It is a type of banking service called Microfinance that is provided to the unemployed or low-income individuals or groups.The ultimate goal of our trust is to give impoverished people an opportunity to become self-sufficient through agriculture based occupations and by providing them with microfinance. A maximum of Rs.50,000 is provided to an individual. Through this, the basic ethics in repayment of loan is well understood by the people.
Skill Development Program
Flourishing rural areas are vital to development of any nation. Education, entrepreneurship and social infrastructure etc play an important role in developing rural regions. Skills are essential for improving the employability and livelihood opportunities. Therefore we concentrate on enhancing their skills for better livelihood. We train them to make handmade products like artificial jewellery, handmade home care products, soap oil, machine oil, agarbatti, Masala powders, etc. The main goal is to provide training and skill development to create opportunities, space and scope for the development and to increase the socio economic status of the people.
Before 2010, we had a nursing institute that provided various courses related to health and medicine. We also provided technical courses like lab technician course and tailoring. A diploma degree in accounting and commerce was also provided
Prevention of Female Feticide & Infanticide program
Female infanticide is an intentional act of killing a female child within one year of its birth using poisonous organic and inorganic chemicals or indirectly by neglecting to feed the infant. On the other hand female feticide is the termination of the life of a fetus within the womb on the grounds that its sex is female. In societies where women�s status is very low, many female fetuses are rejected. Female feticide leads to low female-to-male ratios, which in turn leads to low status of women. Likewise, low status of women leads to more female feticide. The life of a woman in some rural areas is often marked by such humiliation and disrespect that some people feel that it is better for the family, and even for the baby girl, that she need not be born. The most important factor responsible for decreasing child sex ratio is the traditional gender bias.
In our trust we conduct awareness programs every year on prevention of female feticide and female infanticide in terms of knowledge and attitude of adults in selected regions in Theni. Such practices happen more in rural areas as people there have lack of awareness and don�t know the importance of girl child. Hence social intervention programs have been conducted in all the villages of Andipatti Block in Theni district and awareness programs are being continued till date. Till 2007, legal adoption of female infants was carried out. Through the adoption program, 8 infants were saved from female infanticide. The adoption programs couldn�t be continued because of many changes and restrictions in the certification process. Our trust still prevents infants and children from being sent to homes. The trust received many awards for this notable achievement.
Child Marriage Elimination Program
Child marriage is any formal marriage or informal union of the persons who are below the age of 18 years. Every year, 12 million girls get married before the age of 18. Child marriage occurs across cultures, religions and countries. It violates girl's rights to opportunity, education and health. It sometimes traps them in poverty and exposes girls to violence throughout their lives
All over the world, the rate of child marriage is slowly decreasing but progress is not happening fast enough. More than 650 million women and over 150 million men already suffer the consequences of child marriage. If current trends on child marriage continue, 150 million more girls will be married in childhood within 2030.
A lot of child marriages take place in Theni district. In 2017-2018, 43% child marriages took place in Theni. In Tamil Nadu, 2807 child marriages were prevented by many NGO's together in which The Development of Women and Children Trust also gave major contribution to the prevention of child marriage. Our organization focuses on child marriage and sexual harassment and creates awareness on the legal age of marriage for both men and women and also on the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006. According to this, act a child is a male who has not completed twenty one years of age and a female who has not completed eighteen years of age. In Theni district, there are 8 blocks in total and our trust provides training about this act to our field staffs , counseling for boys, girls and parents as well as training on healthy pregnancy and healthy family life is given to the community.
Agricultural & Natural Resource Management
A farmer after choosing a crop has requirements such as water management in relation to crop moisture requirements, tillage and land preparation, acidity control, fertilizer use and protection of crops. Our trust provides suggestions and trainings regarding such issues and creates awareness about organic farming and poly green house technology in order to convert barren land into productive and cultivable land. For agriculture to flourish us also give training to make panjakavya and vermicompost to use as natural fertilizers.
We recently conducted a workshop on terrace gardening and many agriculture students complete their internship in our organisation. We also play a major part in helping the farmers gain the subsidies from the government and make sure all the government policies reach the people. We also carry out research on women headed families and why single women from farming background inspite of having a land do not carry out agriculture.
We also focus on natural resource management where we sustain both renewable and non-renewable resources for present and future use. We carry out pond restoration projects and in sectors of agriculture and forestry we make sure that the over exploitation of the resources is prevented and the surface and ground water does not become contaminated.
Bonded Labor and Child Labor Program
Bonded labour is the system of forced or partly forced labour under which a debtor enters or is presumed to have entered into an agreement with the creditor. Bonded labour occurs when people are forced to slavery as security against a loan or when they inherit a debt. The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act of 1976 (BLSA) denotes 4 forfeitures and 5 obligations which define the labour as illegal and marks the person as a bonded laborer. Under the Act, a bonded debt does not have to be a written document or formal contract and can be created without the prior permission of the laborer. In almost all the cases, most or all of the money they earn goes to pay off their loan. The value of their work becomes greater than the original amount of money borrowed.
Similarly child labor is also a serious problem in our country. It means the work that deprives children of their childhood, dignity and their potential and also which is harmful to physical and mental development. Illiteracy, poverty, debt trap are some of the causes of child labor. In many families, due to addiction, disease or disability, there is no earning, and the child�s wages becomes the fundamental economic support to the family. There is a set of laws which govern the protection of children from child labour. The Factories Act of 1948 prevents the children below 14 years from being employed in any factory. The Mines Act of 1952 prohibits the children below the age of 18 years from being employed. The Child Labor (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986 prevents the employment of children below the age of 14 years in life-threatening occupations. Further, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) of Children Act of 2000 made the employment of children a punishable offence.
In our trust, trainings regarding the Child Labour Act were given to the field staffs and volunteers in all the 8 blocks along with International Justice Mission. Training programs are conducted for every 3months to the field staffs. Reviewing all the national laws regarding child labour, our trust has saved so many young working children. When we come across any case of child labour, we immediately inform the police or call the Child Helpline at 1098 or reach out immediately to some children homes. Also, awareness programs about the national laws regarding bonded labor and child labor and programs about the negative impacts of child labor are conducted to the 8 blocks of villages in Theni.
Village Upliftment Program
We also conduct Village Upliftment Program to create and build self-reliant communities that bring about an integrated development in the villages. Village upliftment is no doubt necessary. The villagers should know their duty for this. They should think of the welfare of their village. The Government has provided many schemes and the villagers should make the best use of them.
We conducted a Village Adoption Program during 2008-2011with National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in a village called Appipatti (a) Azhahapuri. We promoted this new innovative scheme to facilitate positive impacts in the village. We addressed the issues of water, open defecation, poor waste management, Right to Information, road construction, etc. All the basic facilities and skill training programs were provided to the people of Appipatti.
Similarly, the trust on its own carries out a village adoption program in the present. A very remote village is chosen per year and we promote livelihood opportunities for women and youth and help in formation of self help groups and village level cooperatives. The main objective of this program is to enable the people to do the development activities on their own without investing much and not giving anything for free of cost. We provide suggestions, guide them and provide maximum support to them.
Solid Waste Management Program
Waste management is all about how solid waste can be changed and used as valuable resource. We provide trainings to the rural people to recycle the waste flowers from temples into incense sticks and organic vermicompost (made from a composting process using species of worms) and doing doormats from used sarees and elastic texture materials.
Recently we conducted a livelihood training program for making herbal phenyl and natural incense sticks to the CSR project beneficiaries of Apollo Tyres. This is the best small business idea for women at home. This is a huge benefit for low income people. The beneficial use of solid waste saves landfill capacity for materials that do not have alternative uses.