CORD Programs
CORD programs and activities have been inspired and formulated based on dynamic and vibrant interactions with thousands of villagers. CORD's strength and success has been due to its coalition with villagers, where there is cooperative effort to organize, build, and find relevant solutions to personal, familial, and communal concerns.
Please read testimonials, stories of people touched by these programs.
* Village Women's Group: Empowering Women
* Adolescent Girls Support Groups: Encouraging Self-Confidence in Young Girls
* Village Pre-Schools : Nurturing children
* Fighting Social Injustice
* Young Men's Support Groups: Channeling Energy Positively in Youth
* Self-Help Groups: Accessing Financial Resources
* Sustainable Income Generation for Women
* Primary Healthcare Services
* Rehabilitation of the Differently-abled
* Natural Resource Management
* Strengthening Local Self-Governance
Village Women's Group : Empowering Women
CORD's Mahila Mandals are village forums for rural women to discuss personal and economic concerns, and actively participate in common village interests and issues.
Yuvati Groups: Encouraging Self-Confidence in Young Girls
CORD's youth groups for girls are support groups that encourage education and trade skills development. Additionally, the teenage girls learn about adolescent health issues that are not openly discussed in their family or community.
Village Pre-Schools : Nurturing children
In rural settings, gender discrimination often forces girl-children to remain at home and help their mothers take care of their younger siblings. To remove this psychological block, CORD builds village intervention programs centered around girl-children and initiates Balwadis, or nursery schools for children age 2-6 years, in villages. The Balwadi acts as the stepping stone for all children to continue their education thereafter in a regular school. In Balwadis, the young minds are exposed to moral values, physical education, the alphabet, and numbers.
Children continue their academic education in a regular school and their moral and cultural education in Chinmaya Bala Vihar, which teaches children above 6 years of age. In these rural Bala Vihar classes, mothers are invited to attend with their children, and open discussions relating to children, women, and their immediate environment are promoted.
Fighting Social Injustice
To date, alcoholism remains a serious issue in many villages of India. Apart from deepening the levels of poverty from generation to generation, alcoholism promotes violence, especially domestic violence in the form of wife-beating and child abuse.
CORD helps villagers address alcoholism and other social injustices through informal legal counselling and victim support groups. The victims interact with the police and lawyers in a congenial, informal setting to get both, protection and justice, whenever required.
Young Men's Support Groups: Channeling Energy Positively in Youth
CORD's Yuva groups provide a discussion and support forum for male youth and young adults to express, question, face fears, and voice concerns. This forum helps them turn away from the typical escape routes of alcohol, tobacco, and drug abuse.
Unemployment is the single, biggest challenge young boys in the rural sector face. In their Yuva groups, these youth learn about available trade skills and services they can learn in order to create a livelihood for themselves and better opportunities in, and for, their communities. This leads to harnessing youth potential for village development.
Self-Help Groups: Accessing Financial Resources
The concept of the Self-Help Group (SHG) was introduced in 1994 at Sidhbari, and its resounding success made it the new form of micro-banking in village communities. SHG organizes the formation of a small voluntary association of not more than 20 poor people for the purpose of helping them solve their financial difficulties.
The women within the Mahila Mandals or the youth within Yuva groups then initiate the opening of a small-scale, group savings and loan account. SHGs not only help their members take care of each other's financial needs, but also help them learn and refine their skills of financial management, communication, and mediation.
CORD has trained and sensitized more than 20,000 bank officers, government and non-government officers, and organizational workers to promote SHGs, thereby making micro-banking available to the poorest of the poor.
Sustainable Income Generation for Women
Rural families earn their livelihood through multiple means. CORD offers a flexible approach to earning one's livelihood and encourages villagers in large numbers to leverage their aptitudes. CORD facilitates vocational training in diverse activities, including agriculture, dairy, petty shops, food products, fabrics (weaving, sewing, knitting, and embroidery), traditional painting and bamboo products. Ensuring self-reliance, building operational management, and mainstreaming the entrepreneurs into the local market are all integral processes in the services CORD provides.
Primary Healthcare Services
Doctors in outpatient clinics, village midwives, health guides, and community support groups are all employed by CORD to help promote good health and hygiene, and manage rural healthcare issues. Educating villagers of all ages on health and hygiene, recognizing the crucial role of midwives in isolated villages, and connecting villages to accessible medical services is an integral part of CORD's primary healthcare services. Specific healthcare issues promoted in all villages include immunization, family planning, nutrition, hygiene, and sanitation. Additionally, special attention and emphasis is placed on the prevention of various diseases, ranging from diarrhoea to AIDS.
Rehabilitation of the Differently-abled
The dignified inclusion and integration of the differently-abled (disabled) into village communities forms an important aspect of CORD's holistic vision. CORD's rehabilitation program addresses the issues of accessibility, education, and self-employment for the differently-abled, and includes advocating proposals to local government policymakers.
Natural Resource Management
Over time, people the world over have developed a dangerous indifference to their environment and Mother Earth. CORD is motivating and training villagers to develop and implement micro plans to manage and sustain their natural resources. CORD's Natural Resource Management Training promotes and relates jal, jangal, jameen, jan, jaanvar, jeevika, and jeevan (water, forest, land, people, animal, livelihood, and life) as integral, interdependent factors for man's harmonious existence on Earth.
Strengthening Local Self-Governance
CORD's people-centered and people-driven programs need participatory, not just representative, local self-governance. By strengthening the village democratic process through Upa-Graama Sabhaas and Graama Sabhaas (General Body Councils), CORD hopes to kindle the knowledgeable and sound participation of all villagers in making their immediate environment a world of harmony and humanity.