Overview

Rural India is calling! Not just for basics like sanitation, clean drinking water, electricity, economic development and so on. But for long-lasting change. Simply, because there is no point of building a toilet if no one uses it. No point of running a solar center if no one in the village can install solar lighting. No point of having a model village plan when problems of the community remain unaddressed.

With ever-growing numbers of villagers migrating to cities for better lifestyle and employment, there is an equal and bigger need to tend to the lack in rural India. And, to fix it. We believe that a key ingredient in the recipe for a sustainable change is community participation. Thus, when we build toilets, we sensitize masses to use them too. When we build solar centers, we train village youth to install and service solar lighting systems. When we talk about model villages, we gauge problems of a village and inspire the ones who understand them the best, the locals to become torchbearers of change.

In short, to us, infrastructure development walks hand-in-hand with people development. With this basic model, we are working to:

• provide solar lighting to remotest of villages
• empower rural youth and women with skill development training
• build toilets and ensure communities use them
• provide clean drinking water
• strengthen local governance
• making villages self-sustainable

With the Beacon Gram Panchayat training, we realized we can help curbmenaces like addiction in our villages. The situation of addiction was extremely bad in our area. Boys as young as 12 yrs had begun taking to addiction! Looking at the future of our children, we decided to take the onus upon us to improve this situation. Right now, we, women have become much aware. We are united to get things done."

- Sarita Devi, ward member, SHG member, Bhandro, Jharkhand