After being invited to help a village SCAD staff carry out a participative survey to discover the needs of the village. From this a priority plan of action is agreed with the village. SCAD encourages the village Sangham, the traditional form of village governance, or the formation of what it calls the Village Development Committee (VDC) to take responsibility for the implementation of the plan.

SCAD then selects and trains a “Village Volunteer”. This part time person, who is nearly always a woman, is the SCAD representative in the village. This vital role pioneered by SCAD means that a skilled and respected person known to the villagers is available to them for help and guidance. The Volunteer is backed up by a full time trained field social worker called an Animator who in turn reports to one of the six regional Block Leaders. The organisation is de-centralised as much as possible with each block having its own Office and administrative staff backed up by a small central Head Office in the local city of Tirunelvelli.

To achieve its main aim of empowering the rural poor SCAD promotes the formation of village support groups. The most important of these is the Women’s Self Help Groups of which there are over 3,000. Other village groups are formed around single interests such as young people, farmers and parents.

Training is one of the central planks of SCAD’s activities as it works to overcome the oppression, ignorance, and superstition that exists. Scores of training courses are organised on many diverse subjects such as health improvement, gender sensitisation, empowerment, organic gardening and the training of school teachers.

Poverty alleviation is tackled through entrepreneurial training and support and low interest loans. Traditionally the rural poor have never had access to credit save for the ubiquitous village money lender who lent money at outrageous rates of interest of between 100 and 1,000% per annum. With SCAD’s help Bank loans are now available to properly trained groups

Click on the above Google Map
to see the SCAD project locations