Annual Review 2018

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ACTION VILLAGE INDIA
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2018
A N N U A L
R E P O R T

Chair’s Message
Andy Rutherford
Two principles are at the core of Action Village India, partnership and solidarity.
Sometimes they can be difficult to feel and experience but in March 2017, they were
tangible and at the heart of Action Village India’s Partners’ Forum, hosted by Nav
Bharat Jagriti Kendra, which I was privileged to attend. Representatives from six AVI
partners from across India shared how they are making a difference. Solidarity filled
the days. For example, the experience of KGSN from Kerala of developing organic
agriculture for households with limited resources was shared directly with community
organisations in Jharkhand and Bihar and, inspired by NBJK’s work, Crusade from
Tamil Nadu committed to strengthen their work with people with disabilities.
Two people who have been synonymous with AVI were vivid expressions of
partnership and solidarity throughout the Forum as they have been for decades. With
his infectious smile and enthusiasm and over four decades of experience of
community development in India, Alan Leather, our Chair up to April 2018, was a key
participant at the Forum. He is deeply thanked for all his contributions to AVI and
thanked for his continuing support. Part of the Forum was a ‘thank you’ from all the
India partners to Ivan Nutbrown, one of the founders of, and inspirations for, Action
Village India. Ivan was weighed down with garlands and surrounded by friends with
whom he has worked in sincere partnership for nearly 30 years. He will continue to be
part of AVI as a Founder-Advisor from August 2018 when his paid work with AVI
comes to an end. The spirit of partnership and solidarity that Alan and Ivan have
infused in AVI and our vital work with partners in India enables us all, together to make
a difference. We welcome you to be part of us.
Summer Appeal and Women’ Rights Exhibition
In July 2018 we launched our Appeal for Women’s Rights and our exhibition on
Women’s Rights in India at WOMAD. Despite the fact that there have been many
advances in the position of women in Indian society, the majority of women and girls
across rural India still carry the burden of childrearing and domestic duties whilst
suffering a severe access to suitable healthcare and education, and all too often
facing issues such as domestic violence, sexual assault, child marriage and oppressive
cultural traditions. For over 25 years, AVI has been working through its partners to
impact the lives of women and girls in India, enabling them to gain social mobility,
stand up for their rights and choose a different way of life.
We are touring our exhibition on Women’s Rights throughout 2018-19.
Please contact us if you can host the exhibition or know of a suitable venue.
To donate to our appeal please visit: www.actionvillageindia.org.uk/appeal

Director’s Report
Anna Griffiths
2017-2018 has been a fantastic year for AVI and we’ve met some great success. We’ve
managed to send over £50,000 more in funding to our partners in India than last year
and the Madras Café Team at WOMAD had the most successful year ever, raising
£26,000 for AVI projects, as well as once again winning the People’s Choice Award for
the best food at the festival (and there is lots of good food!).
Our team in the office has gone from strength to strength. In February we were joined
by the wonderful Aneeta Patel who is managing our communications and admin, and
over the Summer of 2017, we were joined by three interns who undertook research
projects, helped with office administration and worked to organise the AVI front of
house and exhibition at WOMAD.
Our Partners Forum in 2018 was a highlight - taking part I understood firsthand the
huge benefits there are in bringing together our partners from very different parts of
India to share and learn from each other. Visiting the projects together and talking
with those impacted by their work makes sense of everything that we do back in the
UK and we returned with a new vigour.
This year we have been working to develop new and expanded projects in India,
some with new Indian NGO partners - we hope to see a new project working to
improve the livelihoods of fisherfolk families in and around Chilika Lake and another
working on largescale local governance in Tamil Nadu. In the UK, we are working to
reach new audiences, trial new fundraising events and looking to see how we can
best support our partners in an ever changing context.
As ever, we would love to hear your ideas, thoughts and contributions. Please get in
touch any time. Thank you for your continued support.

Projects Overview 2017-2018
Projects - Tamil Nadu
CRUSADE & ASSEFA
Maternal Health: provides antenatal
and postnatal health care services to
women and babies in order to reduce
maternal and infant mortality rates.
Women’s Development: strengthens
womens self-help groups, forms
special groups for elderly women and
supports widows and female-headed
families to improve the social status of
women in villages north of Chennai.
Disability Rights: supports people
living with a disability by setting up
special self-help groups through
which they can claim their rights and
benefits. This reduces stigma and
enables them to lead lives with dignity
and self-reliance.
2017/2018 has been a great year for AVI and our partners.
We continue to support long running projects run by our
partners, Centre for Rural Systems and Development
(CRUSADE), Association for Sarva Seva Farms (ASSEFA) and
Nav Bharat Jagriti Kendra (NBJK) and we have also continued
to work in solidarity throughout the year with our partners
Ekta Parishad and Kerala Gandhi Smarak Nidhi (KGSN) to
develop new projects.
Projects - Jharkhand & Bihar
NBJK
Girls’ Education: supports 200
adolescent girls to continue their
education. The project aims to
reduce child marriage and increase
the life opportunities of these girls.
Community Action: supports three
grassroots groups as well as NBJK’s
advocacy wing to deliver vital local
programmes in remote areas which
are affected by Naxalite activity. The
projects, including a rural health clinic,
tree nursery, vocational training and
educational support, reach scheduled
casts and tribal groups.
Disability Rights: supports people
living with a disability to access their
rights, earn incomes and run their own
organisations.

Bihar Flood Relief
We also supported an Emergency Appeal from NBJK, our partner in Jharkhand and
Bihar. Floods in Bihar are a recurring disaster, which on an annual basis destroy
thousands of human lives, livestock and assets worth millions of pounds. The 2017
Bihar Floods affected 17 million people in 19 districts of North Bihar and caused
514 deaths and over 850,000 people lost their homes. Thanks to AVI’s donation,
NBJK was able to provide support to 146 families and 200 children.
Some of our figures:
35,248 people
were directly reached
overall, including:
65 post-natal women
and their babies
in Tamil Nadu received care after
their delivery through the Maternal
Health project
300 children in Tamil Nadu received supplementary nutrition
through the Maternal Health project
19,780 people living
with a disability
received national ID cards,
benefits or started their own
business through the support
gained from the Disability Rights
projects in Jharkhand, Bihar and Tamil Nadu
200 girls
in Jharkhand and Bihar were able
to continue their higher education
241 elderly women
in Tamil Nadu received old age pensions
through support given by the Womens’
Developmen project
1,051 people
in Jharkhand received treatment at the community
health clinic supported through the Community Action project
4,500 plant saplings
were prepared and distributed
among villagers in Bihar through
the Community Action project
to protect the environment

Financial Overview 2017-2018
Where our income came from (£299,802)
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EVENTS & MEMBERSHIP
£3,493
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DONATIONS
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£59,103
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MADRAS CAFÉ
....................................... £26,015
GRANTS
..................................................... £211,191
HUGE THANKS TO ALL THE FOLLOWING WHO HAVE MADE OUR WORK DURING APRIL
2017-MARCH 2018 POSSIBLE:
Big Lottery Fund, The Bryan Guinness Charitable Trust, Geoff Herrington Foundation, Miss K M
Harbinson’s Trust, Philip Henman Trust, Returned Volunteer Action, R H Southern Trust, Souter
Charitable Trust and Zephyr Charitable Trust.
Our huge thanks to the Madras Café Advisory Group and all the
many organisers, cooks, washer-uppers, servers and choppers who
raised such a phenomenal amount of money at WOMAD 2017.
Immense thanks to Alan Leather and family and Tony Mortlock
(Audrey’s Fund) for their very generous donations and to Campbell
Tickell for partnering with AVI as their Charity of the Year. Thanks also
to Beazley Management, Brandenburg Choral Festival, the
Cambridge Siemens GAYE group, Selly Oak Quakers and
Soroptimist International of Chelmsford and District.
Thanks to our fabulous runners at the London Virgin 10k, David Mitchell, David L Mitchell, John
Mitchell, Heikki Doyle, Ellie Kellett, Desre Sheen, Simon Jenkins, Jamieson Blake and Chelsea
Keller, as well as to Pallavi Modha, Mary Holmes and all the walkers at the 2017 sponsored walk
at Virginia Water. Thanks also to David Walker for raising funds at the Great North Run and to
Katherine Crisp and David Knock for volunteering their time to sell scarves and cards on behalf
of our partners in India. Huge thanks to our summer interns, Sarah Tharayan, Charlotte Lockwood
and Helen Rampton. Thank you to Jane Swain at Lymm Tax Services for her pro-bono work and
to Champa Patel for the many additional voluntary hours she given to assist with AVI’s finances.
Lastly, thank you from AVI and our partners to everyone who has generously donated to AVI
throughout the year, and who has given their time, advice, skills and support.

How funds were spent (£305,501)
GOVERNANCE
£8,406.............................................................
FUNDRAISING &
COMMUNICATION
£19,422..........................................................
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PROJECT EXPENDITURE
£277,673........................................
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Direct Support for Rural Communities in India (£220,427)
GIRLS’ EDUCATION
(NBJK) 7% ......................................................
COMMUNITY ACTION
(NBJK) 3% ............................................
MATERNAL HEALTH
(ASSEFA) 2% ..................................................
DISABILITY RIGHTS
(CRUSADE) 2% ....................................................
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BIHAR FLOOD RELIEF
(NBJK) 2% ..............................................................
WOMENS DEVELOPMENT
(CRUSADE) 5% ...........................................................
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DISABILITY RIGHTS
(NBJK) 81% ........................................................................
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Partners’ Forum, 2018
The Partners’ Forums are a unique and essential part of AVI activities, bringing AVI
supporters and staff together with all our Indian partners for collaboration,
understanding and learning. AVI’s partners host the forums in rotation and organise
field visits and discussions.
The 2018 Partners‘ Forum took place from 5th – 9th March and was hosted by Nav
Bharat Jagriti Kendra (NBJK) near Hazaribag, Jharkhand, with organisational
assistance for AVI supporters kindly provided by Fresh Eyes – People to People Travel.
Thirty people attended – one third AVI supporters and staff. Everyone attending
stayed at the same hotel and ate together in the delicious NBJK canteen, enhancing
the sense of camaraderie.
Mornings were taken up with field visits to the agriculture, waste management, girls’
education and vocational training projects. Everyone also took time to visit families
and groups involved with the NBJK disability project: AVI’s largest funded project. At
each place there was time to chat with all those involved, providing an opportunity to
understand the impact of projects on the beneficiaries - we never ran out of questions
or suggestions to each other as to how our work could be improved. One example of
a lively discussion between partners, AVI supporters and beneficiaries was about the
use of organic fertiliser rather than the chemical fertiliser, currently being used in an
agricultural extension project.
The afternoons and evenings were given over to discussions concerning policy
issues, workshops, as well as to a gender panel discussion on International Womens’
Day.
On the last evening we celebrated the work of Ivan Nutbrown who retires this year.
The occasion also provided an opportunity to recognise the role of Jayaprakash
Narayan, the Gandhian leader, who inspired the founders of NBJK.
Alan Leather, Chair of Trustees, 2016-2018

The Virgin 10K
Events 2017-2018
This year we had our annual Madras Café at
WOMAD, Pallavi Modha organised the Walk for
Women at Virginia Water and we had some great
runners during the Virgin 10K. We also had some
new events this year - a stall at the Diwali Event on
Trafalgar Square and we hosted our exhibition
during the UN International Day of Persons with
Disabilities at the Jain Centre in North London.
At the beginning of December, we also had the
pleasure of receiving Rajagopal, the Founder of Ekta
Parishad. Rajagopal was here to meet organisations
to discuss Jai Jagat 2020, ‘a global campaign for
peace and another way of development.’ For more
info visit www.jaijagat2020.org.
Ellie Kellett, AVI Secretary
It’s great to have a goal to work for if you want to get fitter, and for me personally as
a deeply reluctant runner, raising funds for Action Village India is as motivating as it
gets. Running the Virgin British Sport 10K seemed a fair balance between do-able
and challenging. My lovely friend Des signed up to do the run with me - Des is an
experienced runner but she was just coming out of a course of chemotherapy, so we
figured her worst and my best would be a perfect match. We shared training tips, I
was overwhelmed at the number of friends prepared to pay to see me run and it was
all going smoothly. Until the big day. We left sunny Greenwich at 7am - two hours later
we and a worried bunch of other runners (including a very hot big green pea) were
still stranded in a sweltering DLR train, stuck in the tracks between stations. Finally,
they let us walk down the train lines and a taxi got us all (including big green pea) as
far as Leicester Square. Not a single runner was left at the start line, we were the very
last to join in, but join we did. And when it was all over and we ran over the finish line
the feeling was fabulous. Thanks to all our generous friends, families and Action
Village India, every step Des and I had made would
become a step further for people in India with
disabilities to live with hope and dignity, for rural
girls to have a chance at growing up educated, for
mothers and babies to survive and thrive. Action
Village India is at the heart of making all of this
possible and it is a privilege to be able to support
that. Contact us if you want to join one of our
future fundraising challenges!

Disability Rights Exhibition
in Birmingham
Fran Wilde,
AVI supporter and
volunteer
Each year in the Madras Café at Womad we
highlight a theme from our partners’
projects through an exhibition of photos
and information. This gives a natural
talking point to discussions about what
Madras Café is doing in a field at a festival.
2017’s exhibition featured NBJK’s
Disability Rights programme. It brought
together striking photographs and case
studies, by Claudine Harris and Michael
Sheridan, of eight men and women, young
and old, with experience of living with a
disability, depicting not only their
hardships but also their dreams – and,
through NBJK’s project, a relentless drive
to make sure their voices are heard.
So often in the past our Madras Café
exhibitions have been stored away or auctioned to raise funds, but I wanted to find
sites for this exhibition to open discussions around where I live in the West Midlands.
So, through a bit of research, I found three places willing to exhibit - a church led
community centre, Birmingham Voluntary Services Council and Cerebral Palsy West
Midlands (an active social and needs support centre). Informal events, with samosas,
at both BVSC and CPWM
brought opportunities to
talk of making links between
people with disabilities in
this country and NBJK. It’s
early stages and, for people
who know, that kind of
communication can be
fraught with difficulties, but
possibilities are there.

Case Study
Ever-smiling 65-year old Maria strongly
believes in destiny - the destiny that has
engulfed her life. A lonely life at old age –
no helping hand though her children live
around the same neighbourhood.
However, today she is vibrant and looks
forward to each day while discovering
new meaning to her life.
Maria lost her husband when she was young and worked hard to bring up her three
children. Things turned out bitter when her sons, after getting married, began
to neglect her.
The Elders’ Group formed by CRUSADE acts as a saviour to the elderly women at
Akkarampedu village, Tamil Nadu, where Maria lives. The group started in 2016 with
11 elders and today there are 20 members. The group members get together under
a tree in a school compound and that’s the moment they cherish. They discuss their
health challenges and there is always a strong member to wipe their tears. The health
camp organised by CRUSADE also helps them to understand their health concerns,
take preventive measures and get a referrals to a government hospital for any further
treatment. Another member, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in the recent
camp held by CRUSADE is under treatment at a Govt. Hospital and is thankful for the
support given to her. Additionally, the group helps the members to access their old
age pensions and any other government benefits.
The elders today, look at life with positivity: “We come for our meeting neatly
dressed. The field worker has taught us that we must keep ourselves clean and tidy.
Look at our finger nails – we trim nails, oil our hair and take baths daily. Why
shouldn’t we? We want to lead a happy life with whatever little we have,” says
Maria.
The group members cherish the one-day picnic that CRUSADE organised for them
and vividly remember the Marina beach and the memorial of the former chief
minister late Dr J Jayalalithaa, that they saw that day.
Cover Image: Parathi, Eldery Women’s Group, CRUSADE
Back Image: Mrs. P, Social Worker, Community Action, NBJK
Images from the Women’s Rights Exhibition

Action Village India
Action Village India (AVI) believes that every man, woman and child in rural India
has the right to take control of their lives and to prosper in fair and equal
communities. We work to secure the rights and livelihoods of India’s rural poor
through supporting our local partners to deliver projects focused on education,
health, land and fishing rights, agriculture and women’s development.
AVI has worked with its partners in India since 1989. Since then, India has
changed dramatically – the economy has grown at seven per cent a year over
two decades, with a rapidly growing middle class. Yet, a third of India’s population
still live in poverty, most of those in rural areas. AVI’s work
today focuses on some of these millions who have been left
behind by India’s economic development.
AVI was founded by, and is run by, people inspired by India. The rural
development projects that AVI supports are devised and managed in-country by
our partners, who work with disadvantaged communities in the Gandhian tradition
of non-violent change and self-organisation.
Staff
Executive Director:
Anna Griffiths
Projects and Fundraising Co-ordinator:
Esther Trienekens
Disability Rights Project Manager:
Ivan Nutbrown
Office and Communications Support:
Aneeta Patel
Trustees
Caroline Beatty (resigned, 2018)
Paul Bragman (Vice-Chair)
Heikki Doyle (resigned, 2018)
Mary Holmes
Elanor Jackson (appointed, 2018)
Eleanor Kellett (Secretary)
Alan Leather (Chair, resigned 2018)
Pallavi Modha
Andy Rutherford (appointed Chair, 2018)
Kathleen Siddle (resigned, 2018)
David Smith (Treasurer)
5 Balls Pond Road, London, N1 4AX / t: 0044 (0)207 241 5125
e: info@actionvillageindia.org.uk / w: www.actionvillageindia.org.uk
: @ActionVillageIn : actionvillageindia
Registered Charity No: 1118845 / Registered Company No: 6110505