CARE

CARE has worked in India for 54 years. We focus our poverty-fighting efforts on the most vulnerable populations: those who are in danger of malnutrition, who are in distress after natural disasters, who are not in formal schools and who are excluded from mainstream society. Within these groups, CARE works primarily with poor women and girls.

CARE’S programmes are in the areas of nutrition, health and HIV/AIDS, social and economic development and emergency response.

In 2003, CARE’S programmes reached more than six million poor and vulnerable people across 11 states in India.

Vision

We see an India where vulnerable people realise their aspirations for a better life in a better community. CARE commits to this by being a catalyst and innovator in relief and development, valued by all, striving for excellence.

Mission

CARE’S mission in India is to facilitate lasting change in the well-being and social position of vulnerable groups, especially women and girls.

We are guided by our core values – respect, integrity, commitment, excellence and diversity –to ensue that our internal behaviours and relationships fully support our external programming and promote organisational learning.

Strategic Directions

CARE is committed to the following strategies accross all its projects:

Achieving active community participation in program design and execution.
Establishing effective partnerships and alliances
Demonstrating sustainable impact.
Achieving balanced growth
Creatively using food as a resource
Developing Advocacy
Evolving diverse organisational structures to meet new and existing program opportunities
Establishing a responsive and supportive organisational structure.

Our Programmes

Programming Principles

We hold ourselves accountable for enacting behaviours consistent with these principles and ask others to help us do so, not only in our programming but also in all that we do :

Promote empowerment
Work with Partners
Ensure accountability and promote responsibility
Addressing discrimination
Promote the non-violent resolution of conflicts
Seek sustainable results.

Programme Focus

We draw on our experience and collaborative relationships to address the underlying causes of poverty and social injustice through:

Increasing representation and participation in local governance
Influencing critical policies, programmes and servicesUsing rights-based approaches, CARE supports efforts that address gender discrimination and local governance in India.

Technical Focus

Nutrition, Health and HIV/AIDS

CAE fosters community empowerment; awareness of rights; strategic alliances with the government and non-governmental organisations; behaviour change communication; appropriate health and nutrition technologies; replication of best practices; knowledge-sharing; and advocacy.

Microfinance

CARE facilitates the provisioning of comprehensive financial services to enable poor clients, particularly women, in reducing their vulnerability in asset accumulation and in incremental house-hold cash flows. CARE also works towards supporting an enabling environment and policy frame-work that helps the poor access resources, services and markets equitably.

Basic Education

CARE strives to address the discrimination uniquely faced by girls in relation to basic education. For this, CARE works towards addressing the social exclusion of girls and issues of relevant and quality education. The programme aims to anable women and girls to better participate in decisions that affect their lives.

Disaster Preparedness and response

CARE builds the capacity of communities to cope with natural and man-made disasters by working with local partners (both government and non-governmental organisations) in disaster preparedness and response.

Urban Development, Tribal Development, Agriculture & Natural Resources, Girls Education.

Urban Development

At the turn of the new millennium, India’s urban population is about 290 million people, which works out to about a third of the population. This figure is projected to grow at the rate of about 3 percent per year in the next decade. By the year 2025, 50% of India’s population is expected to be living in urban areas.

Although urbanization is often associated with increasing national production and higher levels of per capita GDP, poverty remains a persistent feature of urban life, both in terms of income and living conditions. Urban poverty in fact emerges as a more complex phenomenon than rural poverty, with aspects of environmental degradation, inadequate planning and management of urban resources, mismanaged investments in technology as well as insufficient mobilization of communities. Equally notable is the mental and psychosocial divide between the poor and the not so poor, ridden with misconceptions and a lack of understanding of what comprises poverty or vulnerability.

Recognizing these trends. CARE has expanded its portfolio to include new strategies in urban areas. The PLUS project in Delhi, launched in January 2000, is one of CARE’S new initiatives in this direction.

Tribal Empowerment

The tribal communities of Andhra Pradesh are amongst the poorest and most deprived. The Sustainable Tribal Empowerment Project (STEP) is an integrated process oriented project that will work with the tribals to significantly improve health, education, income and food security. This achieved through the establishment and strengthening of relevant community based organizations (CBO’s) with the capacity to plan and manage the tribals own development agenda.

The tribals are encouraged to play a greater role in their own development by helping them choose from a variety of options and partners that can help them improve their livelihood. The projects will have a participatory focus on the communities themselves. In addition, the government and local NGO’s will be involved in project identification, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Women will form a particular focus of the project activities.

STEP is a 7 year project, funded by European Commission, and will target 200,000 tribal house-holds. The project will be implemented in the tribal areas of Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Vishakhapatanam and East Godavari.

Agriculture and Natural Resources

Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) form the basis for livelihood security of more than 70 percent of the Indian population, among who are the largest concentrations of poor in the world. CARE’S commitment to optimie the natural resource-based livelihood security of vulnerable rural communities is reflected in its development strategy of community action on conservation and development.

In Fiscal Year 2001, CARE’S Agriculture & Natural Resource programme drafted a sector strategy and initiated the Western Orissa Rural Livelihoods project. This project is a “watershed plus” project in which CARE is engaged in capacity building and project management with Natural Resource International as the lead. The project covers four districts of Orissa spanning 290 watersheds over its 10 year period. In Orissa, CARE’S Agriculture and Natural resources programme has also been helping marginal farmers and fisher folk restore food production after the cyclone, thereby also improving employment, income generation and asset creation.

In the earthquake affected region of Gujarat, CARE’S priorities include repair and reconstruction of community and individual infrastructure like tanks and wells, water conservation and dry land agriculture development including livestock, and local institution building for sustainable livelihood security initiatives including grain and fodder banks and value addition CARE also provided high quality seeds of milet, sorghum, sesamum, gram and groundnut to people in earth-quake hit kutch, who were also suffering from long-term drought.

CARE is working in partnership with the International Center for Research in Semi Arid Tropics (ICISAT), promoting crop management and working on renewable and non-renewable sources of energy in the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Orissa. CARE also works in partnership, with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) towards the sustainable development of local water resources for food security in rural areas.

Girl’s Education

In India, about 23 million boys and 36 million girls are out of school.

CARE believes that female education impacts directly on the traditional balance of power within households, communities and societies. It recognizes that education has a vital role to play in achieving sustainable improvements in the socio-economic status and self-reliance of low-in-come families.

CARE believes in quality formal schooling, as they are primarily responsible for reaching education to all children. CARE has demonstrated alternative schooling models to help reach the unreached children in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

The goal of CARE’S education sector is to meet the basic educational needs and requirements of vulnerable children, especially girl’s and children from disadvantaged groups.

CARE girl’s education sector supports and compliments the Government of India’s goal of Education.

Contact Us

www.careindia.org

Delhi

27, Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi – 110 016

Tel: (011) 2656 4101, 2696 9770

Fax: (011) 2656 4081, 2652 9671

E-mail : [email protected]

Andhara Pradesh

6-3-608/1, Khairatabad, Anand Nagar Colony,

Hyderabad – 500 004

Tel: (040) 2331 3998, 2339 6379, 2332 4821, 23314390