Fostering The Well-Being Of Communities

All aspects of sustainability are intrinsic to the scope of our business. Farming process and practice is inherently dependent on the availability and health of natural resources. The well-being of communities turns on the economic and ecological vigour of the region. These indispensable linkages give our stake in sustainability a vital immediacy. ‘Citizen First’ is the guiding principle of a comprehensive strategy that encompasses three key areas: farm productivity, management of natural resources and empowerment of communities.

Human Resource Development

Women and children are the core assets of a family’s well - being and future - they are also those most in need of assistance. Our community initiatives are principally targeted at the women and children of our partner communities. Strengthening the economic power of women has powerful incremental social benefits contributing to better nutrition, health and education for their children and improving the quality of life in their communities.

Children are vital to the prospects of every community and they have the largest stake in sustained prosperity. We have chosen to focus on strengthening existing public school infrastructure, increasing school - going and completion of school education – aimed at expanding employment frontiers in rural communities.

Women’s Empowerment

Helping to build family incomes and assets, women are emerging as a positive force for social change and community – based enterprise. Women are motivated to form Self Help Groups that operate micro-credit societies that enable them to build up small saving and finance self-employment and small businesses. ILTD supports local NGOs and provides seed money as an initial corpus, built upon by monthly contributions from members of the thrift groups.

The thrift funds serve as a critical fall-back cushion and are used to finance loans for a wide variety of income generating activities such as leasing land for small plot cultivation and livestock for selling milk, marketing of dry fish, pickle – making, tailoring and for starting small shops.

In a step towards improving public hygiene and enhancing social dignity, women’s groups are leading a drive to build family – owned sanitary units. ILTD subsidizes the cost of building materials for these units, with contributions from the user family, and in some areas, additional subsidies from the State government.

Mother – child health programmes with regular visits by health workers and a comprehensive immunization and nutrition programme ensure protection against deficiency and disease.

School & Supplementary Education

Bringing critical mass to rural education boosting enrolment and completion, upgrading school infrastructure. Strengthening existing educational infrastructure is the most effective way to ensure successful and widespread delivery. Improving amenities and adding to facilities in the local schooling system enhances core community assets and is a significant factor in motivating children to complete their schooling. Providing classroom furniture and fixtures, making available slates and books, arranging for drinking water and water tanks, building classrooms and toilets – school-going is made more enjoyable and productive for thousands of children.

As a much needed ancillary support for school education, we work with NGOs to set up Supplementary Education Centres which provide off-classroom teaching for school-going children, to maximize enrolment and minimize dropouts from the school system. Educated local youth are employed as tutors to provide coaching and general knowledge lessons, helping children improve their learning aptitude and school performance.