Economic Empowerment Programmes for Poor Women, Widows and Dalits
We have continued to carry out our programmes for economic empowerment of marginalized groups, especially poor women, widows and dalits.  Our area of focus,  as it was during the last several years, is the villages of  Kunavvakkam, Koothavakkam, Mettu Colony, Panaiyoor, Nemili Kuppam, Rediyyar Kuppam and Aambakkam of Wallajapet block of Kanchepuram district.  We have also included a few villages in Thiruvallore District which is bordering on Chennai Metropolitan area.  We are in the process of forming a number of self –help groups in these villages so that assistance available to these groups from various government agencies as well as banks could be made available to these women.  We have approached the District Collector’s office in Thiruvallore as well as State Bank of India branch in Maduravayol for registering the self-help groups. In the next few months, the self-help groups enrolled will be provided with credit cum subsidy to enable them to start small enterprises such as trading, shops and so on. 
Further, we have been able to help a group of widows by providing them with a few goats (rams and does) which they can rear.  In view of the fact that goats reproduce quite rapidly, we believe that these widows will be able to generate enough resources for their livelihood as well as for economic mobility.  The goats were given to them with the condition that the recipients have to return the same number of goats received by them at the end of two years so that another group of widows can be given this opportunity for restoring and securing their livelihoods.  A total of 35 goats have so far been distributed for a total of five beneficiaries. Widows with many dependents were given one ram and nine does while widows with only a few dependents were given one ram and four does.  We had difficulty in procuring the goats from villages around Chennai as a higher price was quoted in the city areas. We went to interior villages around Achirappakkam such as Elappakkam to get goats from small farmers who were rearing goats for the market.  In this way, we were also helping the small and landless farmers in buying the goats reared by them and thus this programme is able to help the poor in more ways than one.

Awareness about Human Rights, Consumer Rights, Women and Child Rights:
This has become one of regular activities in the villages covered.  We were able to enlist the services of a few lawyers and consumer rights organizations in spreading awareness about Human Rights and Rights of Consumers by organizing focus group discussions, dissemination seminars on the topic of consumer rights in the villages.  We have also used the time of our visits to the villages for other activities to address small groups of interested and influential leaders in the community regarding the legal remedies available for consumers who have been cheated by product manufactures and service providers.  More than two thousand women, men and youth have benefited from our awareness programmes in the target villages.  The awareness levels in these villages have continued to increase. This has resulted in the village ration shops distributing heavily subsidized rice, dhall, and spices not indulging in any malpractices such as cheating on the weights and measures. Villagers have also been informed various channels through which malpractices could be brought to the attention of authorities for remedial action. 

Similarly, we have continued our efforts at increasing awareness levels about women and Child rights.  Salient features of The Protection Of Women From Domestic Violence Act, 2005 are being explained in special meetings as well as when we come in contact with the women during our regular work in the villages.  During the next year, we would like to undertake a systematic study of incidence of spouse and child abuse in the villages in order to see whether there is a decreasing trend in their incidence.  We believe that as a result pf economic empowerment of women, several women have earned the respect of the families, especially the husband and women also have become more aware of their rights and started asserting themselves.

Formation of Women Sangams and Promotion of Small Savings:
Due to the changed scenarios in the system of government programmes to empower women economically, we have now started mobilizing self-help groups of women with each group having on the average 15 women.  (The government requirement is 12 to 20 women per group).  So far eighteen self-help groups have been constituted in the Maduravayol in Thiruvallore districts. Women have been given necessary counseling and training in running the affairs of the self-help groups, such as conducting monthly meetings, maintaining minutes of the meetings, and writing accounts, and liaising with bank and government officials.  Very soon, they will be able to receive subsidized loan from the banks and government departments.  We have made several visits to the district collectorate located at Thiruvallore along with the members of the self-help groups and this has been a little expensive affair as we had to make several visits over a long distance.  However, we believe that the expenses and the physical efforts are worth as we are going to be instrumental in changing the lives of several poor women for the better.

Distribution of Food, Clothes, and Provisions to Poor and Needy:
We have continued our humanitarian work of taking care of the very poor that we come across during our visits to the program area.  Though it is not in the interest of the recipients to make them dependent on welfare and hand outs all the time, it does become necessary to do this during our visits to the villages and our service areas.  There are quite a handful of very poor that are unable to earn a living because of factors such as lack of employable skills and physical and mental disability.  In this way, we have helped about 118 individuals including their families.

Welfare Programmes for Mentally Challenged Street People
We have continued our work in helping the mentally challenged street people. In important festival days such as Deepavali, Christmas, and Pongal, and on birth and memorial days of the relatives of office bearers of the Society, we have distributed food packets procured from various restaurants so that these people are also able to enjoy the food taken by the middle class families at least once in a while.  It would be better if these peoples are taken care of in a centre where they can be fed regularly and also rehabilitated.

Creating Awareness about Government Welfare Programmes and Grants:
We have made this part of our regular activities and there are indeed excellent government programmes that have important social change implications, especially those relating to protection of the girl child.  We have instructed our workers to devote special attention to the potential recipients of the programmes and helped them to initiate the necessary official processes.