Category Archives: Community Development

Anisha Kitchen Gardens

by

In the rural area of southern India where Anisha is located, marginalized farmers and landless families, often headed by single women, struggle to meet their most basic needs. Approximately 70% of these people are members of the lowest social caste in India and their children often lack adequate nutrition and health care. Without extra support, many of these children drop out of school and become trapped in the child labor sector of the local mining industry.

These families suffer from the results of the Green Revolution of the early 1960s in India. Farmers were encouraged to adopt the use of commercial fertilizers and pesticides, as well as non-native seeds. Soils were depleted across India and many farmers were forced to leave their homelands for slums in India’s major cities.

Susila Dharma USA  is proud and happy to report that Anisha has received the second year of funding for its Kitchen Garden Project from the Guru Krupa Foundation based in New York state. The Foundation has given another grant of $10,000.00 to Anisha this year (2017/2018) to continue its four-year educational project to teach over 1400 middle school students to grow organic kitchen gardens at their homes. These students live in the Martalli Region of Karnataka State in Southern India. Their families struggle every day with extreme poverty and everything that results from it. They live in a drought-prone area that is also hard-hit by the effects of climate change. Learning to grow small-scale kitchen gardens producing organic vegetables grown from native seeds (initially supplied by Anisha’s own native seed bank) can make a significant difference in improving the standard of living in this area. It can help to stem the flow of farming families that are forced to abandon their homes in India’s countryside and move into the dumping grounds of India’s big city slums.

Youngsters at Anisha make “seed balls” out of cow dung and other ingredients. These balls protect the seedlings and give them a headstart with important nutrients.

We are so appreciative of the support provided by the Guru Krupa Foundation to help Anisha do its vitally important work! Please visit their website to learn about their impressive work in both the United States and India – www.guru-krupa.org.

Yayasan Usaha Mulia (YUM)

by

Indonesia

During the massive forest fires in Kalimantan, YUM distributed haze masks and oxygen
During the massive forest fires in Kalimantan, YUM distributed haze masks and oxygen

Yayasan Usaha Mulia, known as YUM, is an umbrella charity that oversees numerous humanitarian initiatives in Indonesia, including:

  • Children’s Village Orphanage,
  • Preparatory Schools operating in slum areas,
  • Indonesia Relief & Development Network providing food, microcredit, supplies, and education to families in crisis,
  • Clean Water Projects for communities, building wells and reservoirs, and training local citizens to manage the facilities, and
  • Teunom Preschool, a collaboration that has rebuilt an Aceh preschool destroyed by the 2004 tsunami.
Continue reading →

Yayasan Tambuhak Sinta (YTS)

by

Indonesia

Using participatory rural appraisal techniques, YTS helps villagers create a Community Development Plan
Using participatory rural appraisal techniques, YTS helps villagers create a Community Development Plan

YTS began working in the seven villages of Bukit Batu in 2009. Using participatory rural appraisal techniques, we assisted each community in the sub-district to make a village development plan, and started providing an annual village development fund to support local livelihoods. The project has identified two livelihood opportunities that show much promise for the development of successful micro-enterprises, these are fish-farming and chicken-raising. In both cases, profitability is limited by the high cost of material inputs, primarily for feed. To overcome this barrier, YTS wishes to provide strategic support to the seven communities by providing training and equipment to manufacture feed from local sources. In 2013, we wish to provide each community with appropriate technology and training in order to enable them to operate local fish and chicken feed-production centers in each village.

Continue reading →

The Human Force

by

Volunteering for Social Change

volunteers_taking_video

The Human Force: Volunteering for Social Change is a program that was founded and is directed by New York Subud member Alexandra Woodward. In succesive years, starting in 2009, Human Force organized four camps to assist SD projects. In summer 2009, over 20 volunteers came together to rebuild part of a school for children from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds at Fundación Amanecer in Colombia. In 2010, the Human Force worked at SD project Usaha Mulia Abadi in San Miguel Atlautla, Mexico, and in 2011, twelve volunteers assisted the Cipanas YUM Village (a project of YUM) in Cipanas, Indonesia. Most recently, in July, 2012, a camp of 12 volunteers from around the world was in residence at Anisha, a program designed to assist local farmers in growing organic crops in Karnataka State, India. Among their activities there, they interviewed community members about their farming practices and needs, and also taught English at a local high school.

Continue reading →