Projects
Empowering Women
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Continue to extend micro-finance using the Self-help-group model.
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Promote & develop entrepreneurship, vocational skills and capacity for trade and business.
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Build leadership skills
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Encourage pride in being a woman
Skills And Trade Capacity Development
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Develop skills that can lead to sustainable employment for women
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Focus on Carpentry and train women to make and market unique handmade products with sustainable, locally sourced wood
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Develop tailoring skills by setting up a tailoring centre which develops
quality products
Sustainable Farming
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Create and develop a model farm to demonstrate the advantages of organic
farming. -
Help improve farming practices in the Kodaikanal Hills.
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Establish an agricultural producers community to grow and market produce in
a sustainable and profitable way.
Ethical Development
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Create a Gandhi Centre where education and research on Ethics and
Gandhian values is carried out. -
Enable a learning platform to train and develop strong values.
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Develop community leaders for tomorrow
Organic Farm
A new project we started in 2014 is to set up a model organic farm near Kodaikanal. Farmers in India tend to be averse to formal training methods but are receptive to learning from success stories they see in their vicinity. We would like our organic model farm to be a place where new techniques and methods of farming are used and can be imitated by other farmers. The farm is located about 26 km from Kodaikanal in a beautiful forested area and we have begun to successfully raise crops without the use of any chemical fertilisers or pesticides.
A related project we have started in 2018 with the support of NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development) is to help improve farming methods in the Kodaikanal hills. This involves setting up a Horticultural Resource Centre which provides technical expertise to farmers in the four major crops in the Kodaikanal hills – Potatoes, Garlic, Carrots, and Beans. In this project, we have also set up small demonstration plots in 20 villages in the Kodaikanal Hills. We hope to get the vegetable farmers to form an FPO (Farmer Producer Organisation) by June 2021.
Gandhi Centre for Values
A project we have initiated in 2016 is to set up a small Centre for ethical education. This Centre which we call the ‘Gandhi Centre for Values’ teaches basic human or Gandhian values to laypersons, particularly the disadvantaged in rural areas. These values include adherence to truth, tolerance, respect for all religions, willingness to go beyond selfish goals, cleanliness, simplicity, and the need to limit our needs. Today, values, ethics, and civic behaviour is only taught sparingly in most schools. As a result, a whole generation is growing up without a firm ethical foundation. The Gandhi Centre hopes to contribute to addressing this issue.
Over time, the Gandhi Centre hopes to be a place where people meet to think critically about the world we live in today and discuss Gandhian and other alternatives.
Our latest course is a two-day residential workshop open to all on ‘Introduction to Gandhian Thought and our lives.
The Centre is housed in a small building on our farm in a beautiful valley near Vadakavunchi in the Palani Hills. We inaugurated this Gandhi Centre on the 2nd of October 2016
Carpentry Workshop
India Nirman Sangh has started a carpentry workshop in 2017. The workshop employs mainly women and produces artifacts that are sold to tourists in Kodaikanal.
In 2018, with support from the Rotary Club of Kodaikanal, we have started a tailoring training centre to train women in tailoring. At this centre, women are also producing cloth bags for a variety of customers. In 2020, they have also ventured into reviving the traditional Kodaikanal craft of lace making.