AADITYA helps the people in the neglected segment make their way out of poverty. We provide skill base training, resources and support to help people launch a activity. 

AADITYA offers support, not loans, to our members. We provide resources, plan and infrastructure, because we are committed to working with the poorest of the poor — people who are unable or unwilling to obtain a help. 

We focus our support on women, the majority of whom report that, once they have launched their activities, they are able to provide better nutrition, health care and education for their families. 

We plan to start or expand more than 9 support groups during current year.

HOW WE DO IT

We identify potential members with help from local organizations that are active in the regions in which we work. We currently have more than 13 such partners.

Once we have identified the member, we extend our services to start or expand a activity. At that time we also provide skill based training and access to various technical resources and knowledge base in a groups. This three-part approach ensures that our efforts are judiciously implemented. It also helps members to best realize their potential as independent and capable process owners, which leads to Self-Empowerment. 

Working with the community to create a life plan, provide necessary skill based training, and material resources

AADITYA trains selected group to help members devise feasible empowerment activity (plans).  The AADITYA plan addresses the same concepts that any business plan would address: What is the product or service? Is there demand? What are the costs? How about the projected profits? Our volunteers work with the members to complete these plans while training them to perform any related community functions.

The majority of the people we work with are illiterate, so we prepare this process to meet their needs. Some plans, for instance, use pictures to convey marketing and business concepts. We also help to complete plans in regional / local languages.

Then we release the first part of the resources. This covers initial setup & launch costs. That might mean providing them rented space for activities, like Meena Mehta did for Govind puri Slum centre. Or it might buy a table, chair, and PC for an member like Pragya, who set up a module development centre in kalkaji office.. 

We also teach members how to calculate running expenses and reinvest profits in their activities for expansion. Doing so is not always easy as most of our members are fresher. But they can still acquire the skills necessary to run a successful empowerment process. And they do, in overwhelming numbers: after the first year, 75 percent of activities continue functioning, while 60 percent of them expanded.

Assessing the project to ensure success
After every three months we assess the project. Is it growing? Is it going to succeed? Are the members managing it properly? To find out, our Delhi Admin office -based staff makes frequent site visits. Doing so gives them a chance to speak directly with members. We are also in frequent contact with our facilitation partner — by mailers, phone, and email — to monitor members' development. In these ways, we are able to see if activities are burgeoning. If so, our partners release the second phase of the grant.

This second influx of resources allows members to grow their businesses further. Rajiv, for instance, bought a second drawing board so that his co-artist could help with her illustrations; Sunita & Sujata better equipped their day care center. Knowledge gained from three months in operation means that members often have a keen sense of what options might be best and most effective. Here the real empowerment process starts...now they are guided to take their own decisions, realign the plans and act accordingly.

Linking the member to Life Insurance savings groups and ongoing support
A vital piece of our program is savings and transparency in Self-Help groups format. We set up group savings policy to encourage members to plan their money for the future. In Faridabad, members of the working women community led by Gauri created the group of 200+ LIC policy holders and National Saving schemes run through govt. post offices. Elsewhere members turn to savings in the case of a emergency. Still others draw on these funds to expand their monthly savings, to pay for a wedding, or buy safer, more suitable homes.

No matter what, savings mean that these families - who previously lived hand-to-mouth - are prepared for whatever life hands them. Food, homes, confidence: this is self-empowerment in action.

We also continue to work with our volunteers to provide members with additional spiritual and social support services. These include links to additional levels of care, including counselling. In this way, AADITYA functions as CATALYST for the first step out of extreme poverty and the first stop on the self-Empowerment continuum.