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Milan 2012

Ashwini

Ashwini, underconfident and unable to read even simple words was ready to drop out of school. With sustained efforts of our long standing education program Eureka, today Ashwini not only reads but writes poetry. She has a book project underway and hopes to be a teacher and a writer some day!

Innovative and well-structured village education centres pro-viding high quality education inputs in Tamil, English, Math, Science and pre-primary, to 75000 children in nearly 1000 vil-lages in Tamilnadu and Bihar.

Eureka Super Kidz

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Milan 2012

Astha and Bhavna from a remote village in West Bengal have successfully been protected from sex trade and made it all the way to college with the help of NISHTHA a partner NGO of AID.

Astha and Bhavna

Sinchan is a shelter for the children of sex workers in South Parganas, West Bengal. It is one of many projects of Nishtha, a totally community based grassroots women’s organiza-tion started in the 1970s that works to empower and develop downtrodden women living in rural areas of West Bengal. Sinchan started out as a night shelter for the children of sex workers in South Parganas in 2006. With the support of AID, it has been functioning as a day shelter as well since 2010.

Sinchan Shelter

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Milan 2012

Chilakamma

Chilakamma, a tribal girl who was a minor was taken advantage of by a non-tribal van cleaner and became pregnant. Parents of the boy tried to pay her to terminate the foetus and forget their boy. Aranyika’s Women’s cell intervened at the girl’s request and submitted a petition to High Court, which in turn, gave her custody to Aranyika. She gave birth to a male child and with the efforts of Aranyika’s advocate the DNA test proved the paternity.

Aranyika

The main objective of this project is to build and strength-en the youth associations and women’s legal cell that Aranyika has been working on during last few years with support from AID. Specifically, this project aims to sup-port one volunteer at the youth association level who will work on the association’s activities and their issues. Aranyika also wants to focus on youth in colleges and nur-ture them to take on social responsibility.

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Pittu

Pittu was admitted in the hospital at the age of 3 weeks with inability to swallow. He was brought to Unmesh-Udhbaas at 3 months of age limp and with motor development lagging behind. With the meticu-lous care provided by the inter-disciplinary team of health care profes-sionals he was able to reach his milestones . With AID’s support the were able to waive the fees as the parents had a financial crunch help-ing Pittu get appropriate and timely health care.

Unmesh-Udhbaas

This project is targeted at providing early detection and early intervention to developmentally challenged chil-dren from 0-12 years of age. This was initially started in 2009 targeting urban slums in and around Kolkata. Operations have since expanded to the rural district of Puruhlia. Children are screened in targeted areas by trained workers, who examine and diagnose them, plan treatments, and counsel parents to make them an inte-gral part of the treatment. Their interventions involve a multi-pronged approach.

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Milan 2012

MAQBUL

Maqbul had to quit school and work with his parents as a trash collector on the streets of Delhi at the age of 10 as his parents couldn’t afford to send him to school. With help of Chintan he was able to attend their learning center and sub-sequently works in a law office assisting with administrative work. This also meant he is no longer exposed to the health hazards from being a trash-collector.

Chintan is an organization that works with waste pickers in Delhi with an aim to achieve social and environmental justice for this marginalized community. Most often the policies and laws pertaining to changes in waste manage-ment and climate change that impact the waste-picker community (Safai Sena, a registered group of waste pick-ers in Delhi) are published in English and are technical in nature. By teaching them about these policies, it aims to empower the waste pickers of Delhi to fight for their right to a decent livelihood

Chintan

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Milan 2012

Madhusudhan

After the historic floods of 2009, Madhusudhan’s entire land of 5 acres was damaged due to heavy sand deposit which made it impossible to cultivate. With AID’s help, the soil was repaired and in the very first season in 2010, Madhusudhan was able to raise a crop after reviving soil fertility organically.He has since become an enthusiastic participant in the sustainable agriculture program initiated by AID and Centre for Sustainable Agriculture and has taken up organic farming. His net income increased to Rs.13,200 per acre, helping him better sustain his family.

This project supports AID Hyderabad activities and promotes organic and sustainable agriculture in Andhra Pradesh. This is done in coordi-nation with the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA) in Kurnool district. In conjunction with this, human rights issues for farmers are also addressed. Through organizations such as the Alliance for Sus-tainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), Kisan Swaraj Yatra, and Raitu Swarajya Vedika, AID seeks to publicize the issue and redirect government policy to address the problem of farmer suicides and other related issues.

Sustainable Agriculture and Farmers Rights

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Milan 2012

Janardhan

Janardhan is a farmer from Vidarbha region which is the epicentre of farmer suicides. He lost his father to a debt trap. With the help of AID partner Chetana Vikas, Janardhan and his wife have taken up self-re-liant agriculture which reduced their expenditures and increased the net income by ten times in the past 8 years. By growing diverse food crops, their family of four sits down for a nutritious food like jowar, green gram, peas and fruits, which most farmers do not have access to.

Chetana Vikas

The approach of “farming for self-reliance” has been taken up by Chetana Vikas to introduce sustainable agriculture methods to tackle the present agricultural crisis in Wardha District. The farmers that Chetana Vikas works with mostly live in dry land areas. They are dependent on monsoon for their crops. But due to global warming and changing weather patterns, it has be-come difficult to combat dry periods during the monsoon peri-ods. In this regard, Chetana Vikas helps farmers construct low cost earthen structures to converse and harvest rain water.

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Milan 2012

Revathy

Revathy is a school teacher turned organic farmer who has done pioneering work in organic farming and in reclaiming agricultural lands destroyed by natural disasters. She has worked with more than 32000 farmers in the organic movement in TN and her work has been recognized by the governments of India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Her primary work involves changing the philosophy of farming in many parts of India - by training farming communities to switch from industrial to Eco-friendly sustainable farming. She researches and promotes traditional farming methods and native crop varieties.

Organic Farming

Revathy’s work instilled belief in the overall farming com-munity that organic agriculture can infact ensure food and income security by reducing costs and larger environ-mental impacts by using traditional seeds and local inputs like bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides.After Tsunami she reclaimed 3000 acres of land saving the livelihoods of the farmers. From 2009 to 2012, 1000 farmers have taken up organic farming on 550 acres of land. Revathi is currently working on a number of projects - training and resource center establishment, developing a group of trainers who can further spread the word and a magazine on organic farming ‘Thai Manne Vanakkam’.

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Richa started her work on women’s empowerment and related issues with an organization in Uttar Pradesh, rising through its ranks to become the district-level coordinator in Sitapur. She facilitated a journalling project with 7 field-level staff members and Richa Nagar, a Women’s Studies professor at the University of Minnesota. Working on this project, which culminated in the publication of a book ‘Sangtin yatra’ (‘Playing with Fire’ in English), the women developed a voice and perspective on the local and global issues affecting their lives.

Sangtin, an organization was formed a few years ago and began operating schools in the area. Following up on this, income generating activities such as a milk collection center and chikan work were taken up. Richa quit her job in order to focus more on Sangtin’s activities. Through sustained discussions with villagers, the availability of water was taken up. Two of the women in the group have contested local elections. In August 2005, 5 members of the collective went on an exposure trip to Gujarat and Maharashtra to visit 3 NGOs/Peoples’ movements and learn from their work.

Richa

Sangtin

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Kamayani started her work as a full time worker of the Shramik Adivasi Sangathan (Madhya Pradesh) who worked with the indigenous population of the region, mostly Korku and Gond tribals against state oppression. She then became associated with the National campaign for the People’s Right to Information (NCPRI). NCPRI, formed in 1996 played a pivotal role in the implementation of the RTI Act, 2005. During this period kamayani worked with the Mazdoor kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), one of the key organizations in the RTI campaign in India. Currently she works with the Jan Jagaran Shakti Sangathan (JJSS), Bihar.

The JJSS’ is a workers’ union focusing on NREGA, Right to Information (RTI) and issues of justice. JJSS conducted Bi-har’s first participatory social audit exercises along with the government in December 2009. The JJSS has since then been involved with Social audits of the MNREGA and ICDS done by the Araria district administration in 2010 and 2011. A large number of volunteers especially college student have passed through the JJSS in the past few years. The JJSS tries to keep socialist principles at the centre of it’s organisation - transpar-ency, democracy and raising workers funds to run a workers organisation.

Kamayani

JJSS

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Kanchi Kohli is a social and environmental activist who has been working on environment and forest clearance issues, and their impact on the local communities and the biodiversity of the affected area, for the past nine years. As a part of Kalpa Vriksh she has been central to the Campaign on Environment Clearance of Development Projects and the Campaign on Biodiversity. Kanchi’s work involves providing support to local groups across India in responding to development threats in their areas, both in the form of strategy support and infor-mation.which is critical to local campaigns and movements.

Kanchi

Kalpa Vriksh

The loss of biological diversity is a growing area of con-cern and is of immediate relevance to the vast majority of India’s population. In particular, tribal and traditional communities such as farmers, fishermen,etc, are heav-ily dependent on biological resources for their survival and livelihood .Kalpavriksh works to proactively track developments related to biodiversity and related legisla-tions and disseminate information through the web and traditional media such as meetings and consultations. The organization coordinates joint responses and alerts on biodiversity legislation in conjunction with the Min-istry of Environment and Forests.

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Charul and Vinay are two activist who raise awareness about various causes through the medium of songs and music and the ensuing dis-cussion. They work to raise awareness about RTI and other people’s struggle all over India.

Charul and Vinay

Alwar Initiative for Peace: On November, 2011 Janpath had an inspiring performance of Insaan Hain Hum in Alwar. More than 2500 people gathered in Company Bag to experience these songs. Organised by the local people and district administration, the program left a deep impression on the people of Alwar. It was an inter-esting mix of people from all walks of life, from various political parties, police officials, administrative officials, labourers, teachers, students, farmers and local NGOs.

Promotion of Peace and Harmony