Shivia
Grant
A UK-based charity empowering the poorest in rural India to create livelihoods, boost income and inspire permanent positive change.
More than a third of India’s population live on less than $1.25 per day. West Bengal is one of the poorer states in India and living standards for the majority are declining. The families in the rural areas where we work are generally excluded from aid agencies for simply being too poor. There are few regular, employment opportunities for rural communities, most struggle to feed their families and education is scarce.
Summary
We launched our Livelihood Programme in August 2011; to date our poultry project has helped to train over 6,000 families in backyard poultry farming and sell them subsidised poultry toolkits
Poultry Development Services Project (giving families the skills to enter backyard poultry farming and radically improve their earning power):
- Training given in backyard poultry farming for 6 months, chickens can be sold at market from 12 weeks and hens start laying eggs at 6 months
- Toolkits (10 one day old chicks, vaccinations, feed, medication and most importantly, training for 6 months) are sold to home-farmers at a subsidised rate; they pay £5 but it costs us £12 - they cannot afford the cost of a full toolkit
Agri-management Services Project (getting big results from small plots of land: enhancing the poor’s agricultural yields through training and modern techniques):
- Launched in April 2014 in the same rural locations as the PDS – to help farmers in a deeper, more integrated way
- Providing technical assistance services across agriculture and agri-allied sectors to enhance productivity as well as provide risk mitigation mechanisms and more remunerative market linkages
- Home-farmers pay 100Rs (£1) for the services
Grants to Shivia will be used to support both our Livelihood Programme projects in rural West Bengal.
Social Impact
Our Social Impact Assessments show that the 6,000 families we currently work with have been able to supplement their household income by up to 30%, leading to:
- Increased empowerment – especially amongst women
- Increased number of children in school as families can afford books/uniform
- Better, nutritious meals on a daily basis for whole household
- Increased access to proper medical care
- Increased access to clean drinking water
- Several families have built their own toilet
- Women are opening savings accounts due to our financial literacy training
- Increased levels of entrepreneurship – women are starting up their own jewellery/tailoring/grocery businesses from the home
- House structures have improved – thatched roofs being replaced with tin/asbestos
- Families able to buy a second set of clothes
- Families able to buy a second piece of furniture for their home
Note
This is a grant. Grants do not provide principal or a financial return back to your account.
