Annual Report 2010-11 ASSIST Building Rural India BUILDING RURAL INDIA TARGET FAMILIES AND POPULATION Target Families Target Population S. Area Villages Comm- No. unities SC ST BC OC MIN Total Male Female SC ST BC OC MIN Total KRISHNA 1 Avanigadda 15 15 - 68 4,719 22 - 4,809 8,816 8,336 - 259 16,777 116 - 17,152 Total 15 15 - 68 4,719 22 - 4,809 8,816 8,336 - 259 16,777 116 - 17,152 PRAKASAM 2 Ballikurava 26 31 2,195 720 1,038 300 5 4,258 8,087 7,801 8,378 2,655 3,725 1,105 25 15,888 3 Markapur 44 44 3,456 96 3,169 2,499 51 9,271 21,101 20,078 15,356 414 14,572 10,598 239 41,179 4 Kondepi 25 34 1,961 18 223 17 18 2,237 5,739 5,400 9,842 98 1,019 102 78 11,139 5 Ongole 32 34 2,067 284 3,931 2,131 - 8,413 16,299 16,187 7,210 918 13,315 11,043 - 32,486 6 Uppugunduru 21 22 293 311 2,146 792 - 3,542 6,622 6,490 1,100 1,086 7,891 3,035 - 13,112 7 Vetapalem 29 29 258 843 2,268 120 21 3,510 6,084 6,051 586 3,314 7,738 410 87 12,135 Total 177 194 10,230 2,272 12,775 5,859 95 31,231 63,932 62,007 42,472 8,485 48,260 26,293 429 125,939 GUNTUR 8 Bollapalli 33 49 1,947 2,131 1,220 86 - 5,384 13,235 12,867 9,184 10,870 5,549 499 - 26,102 9 Chilakaluripet 15 15 925 551 505 385 316 2,682 5,510 5,326 3,833 2,260 1,882 1,598 1,263 10,836 10 Edlapadu 20 26 1,668 435 182 18 72 2,375 4,785 4,619 6,610 1,695 741 287 71 9,404 11 Gutlapalli 25 30 690 1,953 1,196 65 41 3,945 8,980 8,480 3,162 8,392 5,346 366 194 17,460 12 Piduguralla 17 30 1,991 606 1,880 384 358 5,219 11,038 10,697 8,554 2,235 8,039 1,405 1,502 21,735 Total 110 150 7,221 5,676 4,983 938 787 19,605 43,548 41,989 31,343 25,452 21,557 4,155 3,030 85,537 RANGAREDDY 13 Pudur 44 44 2,914 388 3,999 831 1,140 9,272 22,885 22,805 14,039 2,477 19,069 4,121 5,984 45,690 Total 44 44 2,914 388 3,999 831 1,140 9,272 22,885 22,805 14,039 2,477 19,069 4,121 5,984 45,690 MAHABOOBNAGAR 14 Weepanagandla 3 3 96 2 770 245 - 1,113 2,262 2,128 512 10 2,806 1,062 - 4,390 Total 3 3 96 2 770 245 - 1,113 2,262 2,128 512 10 2,806 1,062 - 4,390 Grand Total 349 406 20,461 8,406 27,246 7,895 2,022 66,030 141,443 137,265 88,366 36,683 108,469 35,747 9,443 278,708 Percentage 30.99 12.73 41.26 11.96 3.06 50.75 49.25 31.71 13.16 38.92 12.83 3.39 SC – Scheduled Caste; ST – Scheduled Tribe; BC – Backward Class; OC – Other Castes; MIN – Minorities CONTENTS O FROM THE DIRECTORS 2 O SOCIO-EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENt 4 Sensitisation 5 People’s Organisations 9 Women Empowerment 12 Child Development 15 Community Health 22 O INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT 24 Habitation Development 25 Safe Water & Water Resources Management 30 O ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENt 33 O CAPACITY BUILDING 38 O PARTNERS IN PROGRESS 41 O AUditor’S REPort 43 O YEAR AHEAD 49 O EXECUTIVE committee MEMBERS 50 O TARGET VILLAGES 52 53 From the Directors In our quest towards self-improvement, we are fortunate to be surrounded by such supportive partners. This year, an “ASSIST Vision Conference” was graciously hosted in Milan, Italy by our partners to discuss various questions concerning the future of the organisation. End of Poverty introduced our staff to the Social Return on Investment tool, which will allow us to better evaluate the impact of our programmes. Government has come in to offer support for roads and housing in a difficult year of natural disaster to provide support in areas such as school infrastructure devastation. And finally, new partners have entered the fold and vocational training. With all of this support, we are heartened in our belief that we can continue moving forward. Despite our heavy focus on the future, ASSIST remembers where it has come from and what it has accomplished over the years. Having celebrated ASSIST’s Silver Jubilee Anniversary on the 11th and 12th of January J. RANGA RAO 2011, we are proud to say that we have completed 25 Operational Director years of our commitment to the poor having spread our arena to Prakasam, Guntur, Krishna, Ranga Reddy and Mahaboobnagar Districts, and we have created indelible After 25 years of dedicated service to the poor and marks in the history of voluntarism in Andhra Pradesh. downtrodden, ASSIST looks back with an air of celebration, but also with a sense of anticipation to what the future years years, the following are worthwhile to keep on record: Recalling significant events in our mind over the past 25 will hold. In a global environment of economic recession and a local context of decreasing service-mindedness, how will ASSIST continue to stick to its vision of pursuing Village Reconstruction Organisation (VRO) for various • In the 1980s, when many people started leaving the comprehensive community development in rural India? reasons, we were disheartened at the thought that How will it remain relevant and committed to ‘working such a large volume of human resources professionally with a difference’ in its target communities in the years to trained in the voluntary sector would be joining the come? These are some of the larger questions facing the workforce of public and private sector enterprises in organisation. However, we have not taken the challenge a more commercial way. Thus, we started encouraging lightly. In fact, in this past year, ASSIST has shown its these people to start micro-level initiatives that could continue serving society and working for our own months internally reviewing its own work over the past 25 people’s betterment. ASSIST was one of the initiatives ongoing commitment to reflection and change by spending years, understanding the lessons learned, and enunciating born out of this process. plans that will help us adapt to the future realities, and effective organisation. initiatives came from Fr. Joe Ubelmesser, Procurator of hopefully guide us towards becoming a more efficient and • Moral support for the beginning of these micro-level 2 FROM THE DIRECTORS Missions-Prokur in Nurnberg, Germany. deserving poor families. A major land reclamation project in Krishna District brought thousands of acres initiatives, DESWOS came in to support the reconstruction Child development programmes went in a new direction, • While we made a small beginning with self-help of abundant aqua fields back into paddy cultivation. of the 1st village “Santhinagar” in Prakasam District, focusing more on sustainable development within the which is still a memorable project in the history of whole community. Livelihood promotion opportunities ASSIST. Simultaneously, support started coming from were developed based on professional studies conducted Sonnenhaus-Germany, MISEREOR-Germany, and the on the skills, resources and market potential of Austrian Catholic Women’s Movement. the respective target families and communities. Partnerships worth mentioning in our efforts to make these programmes achievable are: DESWOS in Germany; history. The District Collector of Prakasam, Dr. Jayarakash Mani Tese, Aiutare I Bambini and UMMI in Italy; Plan • The year 1988 was an unforgettable moment in ASSIST’s Narayan, invited us to take up a massive child labour India and Charities Aid Foundation in India. rehabilitation project in Markapur, supported by the Government of India. Based on past experience, ASSIST During this journey of 25 years, we faced many ups and felt that a comprehensive community development downs, however, the support we have received from our programme was necessary because a child is an integral partners and the continued commitment from our staff part of the family, the family is an integral part of the give us the strength and the courage to carry on. Despite community, and the community is an integral part of the society. Accordingly, the initial child-centred the value of working wholeheartedly for others is passed the difficulties and compromises, we do wish and pray that project of the Government of India was converted into on within our families and to generations to come. a comprehensive community development programme, with the objective of making communities feel that they should combat the problem of child labour on their own accord, and not by external pressure. The timely support of Caritas Germany in this project, which helped make this a true model of success replicated on a global scale, can never be forgotten. through the Cyclone Rehabilitation Programme, where • Another historic move for the extension of work was the Government of Andhra Pradesh invited voluntary organisations to take up housing programmes with the incentive of Government matching grants. ASSIST has made good use of this initiative, involving all of its partner organisations: DESWOS-Germany, Andher-Hilfe- Germany, Sonnenhaus-Germany, Caritas-Germany and many others.