INDIA DEVELOPMENT AND RELIEF FUND INC. USA

In the remote hilly villages of three districts in Arunachal Pradesh, about 73% of children are malnourished. With IDRF’s support and guidance, Vivekananda Kendra started a project, wherein, during the free medical camps people are made aware of this program and children selected for intervention. The mobile medical team conducted regular health camps to monitor the changes and provided children with multivitamins, deworming medicines, toothbrushes, and toothpaste. During winters, the team also provided woolen clothes to 50 children belonging to extremely poor families.

In 2017, IDRF started its partnership with Vikahar Paribar Bikash Kendra to bring about a lasting change to the lives of 20 orphans living below poverty line at five villages in District- South 24 Parganas. These children are from families living below poverty line and mainly from backward castes, tribes and minority religious communities. IDRF is providing them access to education (including tuition and school supplies), nutritious food, primary health care, family support and an opportunity to take part in sports and games, in order to help them become healthy and educated citizens who can stand on their own feet and lead a life of dignity

IDRF is providing free education, lodging and boarding to extremely underprivileged tribal girls from North-east India, who would otherwise face a bleak future. To ensure that these girls get high-quality and holistic education, a dormitory that can accommodate 100 girls is attached to a C.B.S.E accredited higher secondary school in Hapur. The parents feel safe about sending their daughters here because of the good experiences of the alumnae. At present there are 87 girls here, many more girls can be accommodated in the dormitory with additional funding for which we need your help! Educating a girl will not only give her financial independence, but help her lead a life of dignity and self-respect.

IDRF is supporting water harvesting programs in impoverished and backward hilly areas, where rainfall is inadequate & erratic. Lack of water leads to low agricultural yields & an increase in malnutrition, infant, and maternal mortality rates. Scarcity/poor quality of water force women to walk daily for 1-2 miles to fetch drinking water! Under this project rain roof-water structures, earthen check-dams, and existing water structures are revived to collect water through rainwater harvesting. So far 30,000+ people have benefited but there is still a dire need to cover thousands more facing acute water shortage.

With the success of IDRF-supported mobile clinics in other parts of India, we have expanded the program to 6 slums of Aurangabad. The medical van provides OPD services, medicines, immunization, cataract, and micro-ear surgeries for slum-dwellers living in abject poverty and unhygienic conditions.

Since 2017, IDRF is working towards improving livelihood activities in below poverty line women-headed households in Kandy District. Under this project, start-up capital (Revolving Loan) and training to cultivate tea, pepper, mushroom and dairy farming, etc. are provided to families, who either established new self-employment ventures or strengthened existing ones. Families were also provided planting material for the crops. An increase in women’s contribution to the family income has helped them rise above the poverty line and are also recognized for their role in the household and community decision-making. In most cases, the additional income is used for children’s education and there has also been a marked reduction in rural indebtedness in the project location.

IDRF’s partner phect-Nepal conducts free surgeries for women with severe genital prolapse at Kathmandu Model Hospital. phect is an NGO committed to developing a model of sustainable community healthcare in rural Nepal. With grant from IDRF, poor rural women patients have successful surgeries and are provided free in-patients’ post-operative care for a week. Several outreach free health camps are regularly organized, which address the awareness and preventive measures for prolapse among women.