Organisation : TRDC is an NGO founded during the year 1994. It is registered under Public Charitable Trust Act. The organization has its project area in Haveri, while having its headquarters in Bangalore. The issues of acute poverty, resource degradation, ill health, illiteracy and lack of awareness on various aspects of development among the rural communities have prompted TRDC to organize poorer section of the society with special emphasis on women empowerment and self-help approach for their own development. TRDC as an organization is working till from the beginning in the arid and semi-arid zones which are complex ecosystems with natural potential sufficient to provide a good quality of life, if the development approach adopted is socially just, ecologically sustainable and culturally appropriate. TRDC tries to address many of the most basic problems faced by the rural people seeking to improve their quality of life by addressing the issue of poor education standards, alternative income opportunities, employment, human rights environmental degradation and rural infrastructure.
Major Objectives
*Care and service for the Educational, Economic, Environmental, Cultural needs , Welfare and well being of all persons residing in India irrespective of Caste, Creed, Race, sex, language or religion and more specifically downtrodden, economically backward rural folk living below the poverty line in particular with prejudice.
*To undertake the preservation of natural resources mainly land, water and vegetation to sustain life on this planet by maintaining ecosystem and to prevent exploitation of these resources by some sections of the society and ensuring equitable distribution to meet the basic needs of all, especially the poor.
Approch / Strategy
*Building Social Capital-through primary education for school dropout children with special emphasis on girl child, propagation of child rights, promoting grassroots level institutions such as women/youth self-help groups, strengthening the functioning of Panchayati Raj institutions and various village development committees such as School Development and Monitoring, Village forest committee, water users association etc.
* Environmental Regeneration in the rural areas with focus on conservation of wetlands, bio-diversity, water resources, wildlife and promotion of climate change mitigation /adaptation mechanisms through community engagement
*Sustainable livelihood people institution: developing savings and credit schemes for women and link them with formal financial institutions for accessing the credit, skill development and vocational education for youths, and prepare women and youths for coping up the stress from unforeseen financial losses through enterprise development trainings.
Major Activities
1. Eco-Development Activities Western Ghats( Uttrara Kannada and Mysore/ Coorg District)
· Rainwater Harvesting : Rainwater harvesting will make an important contribution to resolving water shortages in the future due to negative impact of climate change. For at least three millennia, people across the world have harvested rainwater for household, livestock and agricultural uses, but rainwater harvesting has become more and more neglected since the advent of large centralized water supply systems, in spite of their high energy input and serious environmental problems. Rainwater harvesting in semi-arid regions like eastern part of Sirsi Taluk ( Near Banavasi Hobli) is the need of the hour because of severe water shortages in the region. TRDC has made efforts to initiate Rainwater Harvesting pits through community mobilization. So far several hundreds of Hectares have been covered under rainwater harvesting pits in Bengle village near Banavasi through community participation and mobilization
· Rehabilitation of village Tanks: In the hilly region area like Uttara Kannada percolation/irrigation tanks play a major role to mitigate the severity of drought and scarcity conditions. Tanks are the traditional sources of irrigation in Sirsi Taluk of Uttara Kannada. It is the cheapest and easiest way of collecting and storing the rainwater during the rainy season for the use in scarcity. Tanks were constructed by the generous individuals as a part of their religious obligation or by the rulers as their social obligations or by the villagers themselves for their general welfare. In ancient days, every village had a tank. Tanks were the main sources of livelihood and were considered sacred. The experience of people in the Sirsi taluk of Uttara Kannada District has shown that the livelihood system of rural people is completely dependent on the TANKS – the major sources of irrigation for agriculture. Majority of the villages in the taluk are depending on the agricultural income for their survival. Except agriculture, people do not practice other forms of occupation. Hence the water in the tanks plays a major role in the livelihood system of rural people ( both landless and landholders) in the region. Over a period of years, Depletion and degradation of water resources in Uttara Kannada Taluk have gone virtually unnoticed. Currently TRDC has initiated tank rehablitation programme at Bengle village near Banavasi in Sugavi Panchyat, Sirsi Taluk. This project is being supported by CAPART, Dharward
* Conservation of wild fruits trees: The tropical evergreen forests in Uttara Kannada District provided the micro-climatic conditions for the growth of various Tropical fruit spices. Local communities believed that the forests were the property of the gods of villages in which communities made their homes. The rare fruit yielding species were affected due to habitat fragmentation. Recently when TRDC started an inventory programme of forest fruit trees and shrub species in the fringes of western Ghat and eastern plains near Sirsi, North Canara District, Karnataka. It has come across various wild fruit trees which are under great threat. TRDC felt in-situ and ex situ conservation can help to re-establish selected fruit trees and shrubs in the forest and countryside, creating adaptable, high performing forests rich in species to fulfill their manifold functions: utilization, protection, conservation recreation which will enhance the food security of local community and wildlife in the project region. TRDC is trying to conserve forest trees yielding fruits to improve the livelihoods of local community and help wildlife to fulfill their nutritional requirements.
*Tribal livelihood support and empowerment for Tiger conservation project around Nagarahole National Park : is continuation of ongoing efforts regarding tribal resettlement and empowerment of resettled tribal. In the year TRDC has joined hands with other Civil society groups in Mysore /Coorg districts. TRDC Project team involved in assisting the relocated tribal to get benefits from existing Government schemes and also directly assisted them by providing agricultural inputs, medical support and school supplies for children. In order to empower tribal women, women self-help groups were promoted and initial exposure visited conducted for them to get an idea of functioning of self-help groups
2) Community Development
* Education for Working Children : TRDC has taken child labor in its villages as a human rights issue. So it is trying to address the issues of child labor through different means such as bridge school education, public campaigns, counseling parents, motivation camps for working children, advocacy and lobbying against all forms of child labor practices. Education strategy of TRDC is on the belief that any effort to universalize education and in effect eliminate child labour should aim to cover the entire set of children outside school and not just a limited age segment. It is only by adopting this approach that it would be possible to hit at the acceptability of child labor and promote child labour free society. Since July 2000, TRDC has made concentrated efforts and rehabilitated around 1500 working children back to the formal school. Currently its providing education through non-formal education centres run during evening hours for 2-3 hours. It also runs supplementary Education for rehabilitated children as a follow-up. Community feels its not enough and express that complete development of the family is the only solution to eradicate child labour system in their region. Hence TRDC is looking for partners of making Haveri District as first Child labour free district in India . Currently TRDC works with 2500 children and focus on education and awareness education on environment conservation/climate change among children and youths in Haveri and Uttra kannada District.
* Vocational Education for Youths: TRDC works with unemployed youths who are illiterate and belong to low castes and economically weaker sections. Youths work as agricultural labourers and causal construction workers. Although most youths pass their examinations large percentage of youths in the age group of 18-25 years are either unemployed or work as causal laborers in agricultural sector. While realizing this TRDC has initiated vocational education such as tailoring, screen printing, TV tape recorder repairing, driving, and plumbing. TRDC also encourages youths to organize themselves under self-help groups in the villages and work for the betterment of the villages. Sofar TRDC has trained more than 900 youths in the District.
* Micro_credit and Micro-Enterprise Promotion for Rural women and youths.: All the poor families who are socio-economically backward are organized under self-help centered development process. One women member per family are brought under self-help group programme to be liked with local formal financial institutions. After becoming the member of self-help group, member will have the opportunity of getting various women centered development programmes implemented by TRDC. This will enable poor women for an easy access to credit with less interest rates there by increasing the scope for families to improve economic base and come out of poverty. The women groups promoted by TRDC have proclaimed the philosophy of empowerment, information sharing, awareness creation, educating girl children, capacity and skill building of the women in neighborhood. The SHGs promoted by TRDC as grassroots level institutions have started aiming at promoting savings and credit and mutual help for economic development and participatory approach to development. TRDC firmly believes that SHGs should practice the principles of savings, trust, consensus, entrepreneurship, networking, team management and community rural development for at least six months before they seek access to external assistance such as loans and subsidies. So far TRDC has promoted around 95 self-help groups in Haveri and Byadgi taluk of Haveri District. Women have saved more than 15 lakhs and borrowed more than 15 lakhs as loans from formal banks and utilized the money for income generating activities and for children’s educational needs. All the SHGs are federated into cluster level apexs. As of Jaunuary 2004 there three cluster level federations of self-help groups promoted by TRDC in Haveri District. One Cluster level apex body is registered under societies act in order to fasten their institutional development process. TRDC strongly believes that ultimately people’s institutions play a key role in their own development process. So TRDC’s main emphasis is on building women’s institutions to achieve sustainable development of the communities
* Networking, Advocacy and lobbying : Campaign Against Child Labor( CACL) movement : Child labor is one of the severe most social evil in Haveri district and though children are the ultimate victims of the practice in spite of stringent legislation, the whole society is responsible in one way other. According to estimation, out of the 2,60,590 children in Haveri district, a staggering number of 26,463 are child laborers and out of them 13,124 are girls( HDI report Karnataka). The estimation also says that there are 500 cases of bonded child labor cases in the district. In order to throw light on the menace and create awareness on the grave matter, In order to initiate the campaign again child labor, TRDC is taking lead in terms of strengthening the movement by promoting village level forum to address child labor issues. Dudiyuva Makkala Vimochana Vedike (DMVV) is the Taluk level forum which includes school teachers, village level elected representatives, interested individuals and women's associations. This forum is quite active in the district and making efforts to improve girl child education in the region
For Partnerships, please contact;
The Director
Tropical Research and Development Centre(TRDC)
email : trdcindia@gmail.com
