Work

 

Mr. Sudhakar Karunan is a Program Coordinator in the Association for Community Movements for Social Action. He works with landless laborers and Dalit, or “untouchable,” families in 15 villages in the Thituvalur District. “As I belong to the Dalit community, I have experienced their situation. I am well aware of the hard work of farming, and I know what poverty and hunger is. The caste system in the rural areas is very obvious and visible. Every village is divided into two settlements. One is upper caste and the other is lower caste. The lives of the lower caste are a daily struggle to find employment, education, decent clothes and shelter. This situation influenced me to work among the oppressed people and become a leader for the community.” Mr. Karunan works at the village level, organizing the people into self-help groups with whom we works through a participatory action approach. To date he has formed 20 self help groups, composed of 300 women and 175 children. They have begun developing kitchen gardens and backyard poultry projects, organized medical camps on nutrition and mother and child health care, and conducted training on organic farming practices such as composting and vermiculture. After the ARI training program, Mr. Karunan has plans to set up a demonstration organic farm, raising vegetables, poultry, and dairy cows, on two hectors of land owned by ACMSA.

 

Sending Organization

 

The Association of Community Movements for Social Action (ACMSA) has its beginnings in the “Parliament to People” programs organized by the Church of South India. The programs of ACMSA focus on organizing and capacity building in the dalit and other poor communities, to address development issues within their local context. The approach is participatory training action research whereby the village people carefully analyze their own situation and the issues they are faced with. Women constitute the major focus group and ACMSA helps to organize them into “angams” or associations. These angams carry out regular sharing and reflection sessions and ACMSA works with them on developing strategies for responding to critical issues through collective action. ACMSA believes in the creation of a just and peaceful society where all people, regardless of creed, caste, or color, shall live in unity with mutual love and respect and genuine concern for both the human kind and nature.