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DHAN Foundation - Philanthropy Updates: Aug - Nov’ 2007DHAN Foundation aims to attract socially concerned people to take part in the development process in poverty reduction. DHAN’s Centre for Facilitating Philanthropy is creating opportunities for people and groups within India and abroad to meaningfully involve and contribute to development works. The experience has been highly encouraging with your support and partnership. It has helped to set a platform to help the needy and share smiles among those in need. The Centre has been working on identifying various development needs and enabling the local community to take charge of the challenge to find solutions for it. As a part of it the centre is launching various ways to meet the needs of the community and provide the donors with choices and to experience the joys of giving. The development needs brought to focus so far are, creating safe drinking water sources through reviving the life saving Ooranis, bringing light to the remote households by providing access to electricity, stabilizing the livelihoods of the dry land farmers through construction of farm ponds, support to set up multi purpose community resource centres, life saving surgical and health care support to poor, opening new avenues to the under privileged children through education program and bringing back the lost glory to the green fields of rural areas through rehabilitation of tanks. All these initiatives are taken up by the poor organized into groups, clusters and federations on particular theme say water, microfinance, etc. the poor gain an identity and get equipped to address their own needs and take charge of their development and future. Sponsor an Oorani was the first initiative in this effort, launched in July 2006 with the incredible support and encouragement from donors all over the globe. The project aims to ensure sustainable access to safe drinking water to the villages, where Oorani are an appropriate solution. This update is far Aug’07 – Nov’07.(Earlier update July06-July07) Currently 24 Ooranis are features in the site. So far 19 Ooranis were received support from individuals and group of donor across the glob. Interestingly many of the donors took this cause close to their heart and extended repeated supports, and many of them organized their friends to support this cause. Eight new Ooranis at Keelakanniseri, Orivayal, Senkottaipatty, Saveriyarpattinam, Indira Nagar of Mudukulathur block in Ramanathapuram district, Karuthaiyapuram and Kalugasalapuram of Vilathikulam block in Tuticorin district of Tamil Nadu and Dhadonda of Adilabad block in Andhra Pradesh are featured in the site recently. Of them, three Ooranis namely Keelakanniseri, Karuthaiyapuram and Dhadonda have received support. A village woman from Karuthaiyapuram says….The fencing for the drinking water Oorani is a long felt need in our village. Our village is around 3 km away from the main road to board a bus. My daughter who is studying 8th standard has to support me in fetching the water for drinking and domestic purpose before leaving to school. Many days it becomes difficult for her to catch the bus and to reach the school in time.
My village is situated in the top of the hill thus getting water during the summer is very difficult. We bring water using bullock cart. We have no other transport facility. We travel around four km to get water. Even I spent 8 to 12 hours per day to collect water to my home during summer. I know few people spend their entire night with torch light for getting few pots of drinking water. Getting drinking water is costing more than our lives here. We go to far way streams to fetch water where there is a risk of getting attacked by wild animals. Read more about the Oorani project Progress in the ongoing WorksThe months of August to November were crucial for completing the earth works in the Oorani projects. So that the monsoon rains could be harvested and stored in the Oorani during this year itself. The village communities are happy that earth works are completed in all the projects initiated so far. Project Highlights
The work status
As on November 2007, the works worth of Rs. 2,566,239 was carried out in the Oorani projects. Intermittent rains and agricultural works during the period delayed the finishing works in few of the ongoing Oorani. Inlet and fencing construction works are going on in most of the Ooranis under progress. The funds are transferred based on the needs and indent raised from the village association. The funds are sanctioned for the estimates approved by the technical team. The works are monitored and guided by the program experts regularly. The accounts of the village associations are audited by the internal auditor and the chartered accountants. View the audited fund utilization statement of Viyasapuram Oorani here Donors for the periodAn amount of Rs. 387,056 is contributed by the donors during the period Mr. Partha Sarathy from New Delhi is the one joined us newly. His interest to contribute to the cause of water has resulted in committing himself to adopt an Oorani at Keelakanniseri village in Mudukulathur of Ramanathapuram district in Tamil Nadu. Another friend from Ghana, Mr. Rajanandam and Sujatha Rajanandam joined hand with Mr. Raghavan Srinivasan to support the fencing work for the Oorani at Karuthaiyapuram. Ms. Ramya’s friends are again on track to take up another Oorani project in Dhadonda village of Adilabad district in Andhra Pradesh. Mr. Venkatanarayanan from Bangalore is supporting Rs. 10,000 for the Kalugasalapuram Oorani at Vilathikulam in Tuticorin District of Tamil Nadu. Mr. Balachandran from Chennai has chosen an innovative way of supporting the Oorani project with a regular monthly contribution of Rs.1000. Listen to our Donor voices
'As part of our endeavour to give back something to the community, we were looking for good developmental projects to contribute to. That’s when we came across DHAN. We were impressed with DHAN because they were addressing one of the basic needs i.e. water, in a traditional and simple way, instead of expensive, time consuming and controversial projects. We have been fortunate enough to have had running water right inside our homes. Not everybody is so lucky with people having to walk long distances to collect water. But with a bit of effort, if we are able to bring water closer to their homes, it is very fulfilling. All credit to DHAN for making this possible through their innovative approach. We also liked the fact that all the beneficiaries were involved in the project -something which will help in making it more efficient and long lasting. We are happy to be partners with DHAN in this process of development. Our best wishes are with them and we hope that they will be successful in all their ventures.'
Over the last decade, I have come across a number of collaborative efforts of communities and NGOs across various fields in India. As some of these initiatives have been set up and managed by close friends from school and college, I have had the opportunity to support them financially which has been a real boon for me. Dhan Foundation and Ms Raghini were introduced to me by Ramya and Anantha Nageswaran in Singapore. Their scheme of reviving Ooranis in the villages of Tamil Nadu where the local villagers contribute money and effort impressed me enormously. It was something that I was certain would be an extremely useful endeavor and an enduring solution thanks to the participation of the community. The feedback and the success stories that I have received ever since has only reinforced my opinion. I thank Dhan Foundation for providing me an opportunity to help rebuild tanks so far and do hope to support other initiatives such as rural electrification and access to clean drinking water. I am proud to be associated with them. Other projects
Read more about Light a home project ……. Support a Farm Pond to stabilize a farmer’s life is the next project to be launched in the series. This project aims to restore the livelihoods of the dry land farmers by providing a localized water source at farm itself in the drought prone areas. The water harvested in the farm pond helps to save the crops by assuring irrigation during critical growth stages. It helps in generating additional employment to the family, favors crop diversification and improves the value of land.
Support in kind, contribution in kind is one of the interesting ways to help the initiatives in development work. A group of friends of DHAN from Netherlands during October 2007 has contributed 12 used cameras for the community colleges run by DHAN. We could explore similar such innovative ways of supporting the community in kind.
Way ForwardThe involvement of the village community, the commitment and enthusiasm shown by the donors has been highly encouraging. Our experience shows us that for all the genuine causes there are committed people to support. It has urged us to amplify our focus and deepen our action in reaching more villages. AcknowledgementsOn behalf of DHAN Foundation and village community we express our deep sense of appreciation and gratefulness to all the donors and well wishers for their continuous support and encouragement to help the community in their effort to bring a difference in their lives. To partner in changing the lives of needy Kind hearted well-wishers Centre for Facilitating Philanthropy Previous issues |
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The tribal people from Dhadonda village say…….
Mr. Rajanandam and Sujatha Rajanandam says 
Mr. Vinod says ………………
Light a Home – Providing access to electricity opens many avenues of development in improving the standard of living of a poor family. This facility is most effective as it gives greater scope to reduce the drudgery of women in managing the household works. In the absence of electricity, a lot of time and energy is wasted in collection of fuel based energy sources. The poor are greatly affected by the safety and health issues connected to it. Access to electricity not only helps to improve the quality of life for the family but also provides a comfortable environment to the education of the children. Ms. Uma Hrishikesh from New Delhi has made the first support to the project with Rs. 5,000.
We are happy to share that Ms. Sujatha Rajanandam has extended support by volunteering in write ups and editing works for farm pond. We will be featuring the farm pond project in the web site shortly. Mr. Bala Dhandayutham from Dubai has initiated the project with a contribution of Rs. 25,000 towards farm pond rehabilitation works.