Fundació privada ADA Món Adivasi

Responsible NGO: Jivhalla Assumption Social Center, Vasai
Project coordinator: Sister Deepti
Period: 2 years (2007-2008)
Budget: Self-help groups, 3,600 ? / year ? support classes, 4,000 ? / year

After five intense years working with the Adivasi community in Vasai, a proposal has been put forward to back the project ?Education and empowerment of Adivasi Children and Women? financially.

The main activities in this project are the reading and writing classes for women and children, the empowerment of women and the training programmes to generate income. The main work revolves around abolishing child exploitation and avoiding that families fall in the hands of abusive moneylenders.

Two thousand women and children will benefit from the project, most of them illiterate and below the poverty threshold. The teachers chosen from amongst the poorest will receive appropriate training and empowerment to carry out their task.

The plan involves working with all the members of the community. The youngest children will receive support classes to ensure their learning process, which is often inadequate due to the low quality of teaching procedures in official schools.

As to women, the intention is to promote the creation of Self-help groups (SHG). The main topics to cover in these groups are economic development, working rights, children's rights and health-related matters. Amongst adults, specifically wome n, parallel work will be carried out on the same topics to make sure dialogue ensues with all the community.

Through the self-help groups, activities related to income production and savings groups will be set up.