Shakti Organisation | Programmes

Programmes

Women Empowerment

Empower women, change society. Women are key change agents for addressing gender imbalance and poverty. All Shakti’s programs seek to support women and build their social and economic participation and leadership

Livelihoods Promotion

Plantation Drive Land, water and forests are the three most important resources for rural peoples. Shakti works with village communities to achieve a more sustainable and secure livelihoods by:

Promoting environmentally friendly Community Forestry and Horticulture, agricultural land and water conservation;
Facilitating the formation of Vanya Sanrakhyan Samiti (VSS) - Village Forest Management Committee;
Promoting alternative livelihoods such as fish farming, horticulture production and livestock rearing; and
Promoting watershed intervention to raise the water table, protect against soil erosion, improve the soil’s water absorption, improve vegetative growth and increase agricultural productivity.

Community Health Care

ASHA Training Impoverished rural communities suffer low productivity through ill health caused by a lack of awareness of good health and hygiene practice, disease and malnutrition. Shakti's 3-fold approach to health involves it working with government Primary Health Centres and village communities on preventative, promotive and curative measures.

Child Rights

Schoolchildren In Rayagada District, children face many perils: Malnutrition, Child Labour, Child Migration, early marriage, loss of parents. To help address these issues, Shakti manages a school for the rehabilitation of child labourers and works with the children’s families to enable the children to return to mainstream education. Shakti is also the District collaborative organisation for CHILDLINE.

Old Age Care

The majority of India’s elderly population are amongst the rural poor. Chronic health problems can lead to the inability to work, making life impossible for many, especially elderly women. Shakti works on institutional and non institutional care facilities:

to foster the welfare of the elderly people; and
to create a social awareness about the problems faced by the elderly.

Water & Sanitation

Gravity Well In remote hilltop tribal villages, water comes from streams and springs. However, for 3-4 months of the year it becomes unfit for human consumption due to monsoon run off entering the water courses. Healthy water makes for a healthy life. Shakti works with village communities not only to improve their water supply at source through enclosure, building and mending wells, etc., but also works through school and community groups to amend and improve hygiene behaviours aimed at achieving a defaecation free zone for each village.

Panchayat

The Panchayati Raj Insitutions (PRI) are the foundation of the Indian democracy and system of government, reaching down to village communities and empowering them to elect representatives and decided upon actions. Their success depends upon people’s ability to participate in an informed manner, and the representatives’ abilities to perform their duties. Shakti works pre and post elections to build the capacity of voters and representatives alike, in particular with women representatives, building functioning Information banks through its Model Panchayati programme