Programmes

SERVITES OF THE POOR takes inspiration from the United Nation’s Child Rights Convention (UN CRC) which is a human rights treaty that sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children.

All children are not fortunate enough to receive an environment which is conducive to provide appropriate development opportunities. The need to protect some children is certainly greater than others due to their specific socio-economic and political circumstances and geographical location. They are more vulnerable in terms of the risk to their right to survival, development, protection and participation. These are the children in especially difficult circumstances.

SERVITES focuses its attention to children who are deprived of opportunities to come up in life.

Due to community-based intervention, SERVITES has been successful in responding to children in especially difficult circumstances; it has so far enrolled 4836 children from the deprived sections; 2532 children were covered under the Supplementary Education; 2742 school final students were provided with educational counseling services.

SERVITES has plans to attend to children who are deprived of early childhood care; children suffering from malnutrition; children in need and care and support; denied of formal education and life skills.

In the year 2005, SERVITES, which is a member organisation in a network called LAMP NET undertook a needs assessment study in 25 most backward village panchayats of Melmalayanur Block, Villupuram District to study the issues and problems of the persons with disabilities.

Based on the study an intervention plan was made which focused on organising the PWDs into organised groups, linking them with the service providers and supporting them in the economic development activities.

After undergoing a rigorous training at People's Craft Training Centre, Kariyandhal village, Thiruvannamalai District, MAKAM was able to work in close collaboration with government to develop complementary and supplementary programs for the persons with disabilities

WE CAN Project for PWDs

No. of Blocks covered under the ‘WE CAN Project’: 1 Block

No. of Village Panchayats covered under the ‘WE CAN Project’: 25

No. of PWDs covered under the ‘WE CAN Project’: 634

With the partnership and support of Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disability implemented YOU CAN Project. YOU CAN Project for PWDs

No. of Blocks covered under the ‘YOU CAN Project’: 2 Blocks

No. of Village Panchayats covered under the ‘YOU CAN Project’: 123

No. of PWDs covered under the ‘YOU CAN Project’: 2137

SERVITES’ mission among the Adolescent Girls would cover three key areas:

i. Raising awareness of the need to invest in and support girls, and shifting the social expectations that stifle their prospects.

ii. Strengthening services to help adolescents at risk, and prevent child marriages and ensure formal education, and

iii. Support the adolescent girls from the marginalised sections to develop appropriate Life Skills for personal and social development.

In the months of November and December 2018, SERVITES has undertaken a study on the issues of Adolescent Girls. Based on the recommendations it has evolved an action and now looking for partnership. As a preliminary work, 110 Adolescent Girls Groups are formed and there are 1045 members in these groups.

SERVITES places women at the centre of its work, creating the services, tools and networks they need to breakthrough complex and entrenched situations of poverty and hunger. Our approach to gender equity is based on the recognition that all interventions in favour of women must ensure an environment free from all forms of violence against women and also ensure the participation and adequate representation of women at highest policy levels. Women's economic empowerment refers to the ability for women to enjoy their right to control and benefit from the resources, assets, income and their own time, as well as the ability to manage risk and improve their economic status and well being.

The purpose of our partnerships - spanning from developing social skills, creating safe spaces through gender equality, providing or linking them with financial services, health, and agriculture - is to create sustainable solutions that can be broadly implemented to improve the lives of women and families living in poor, rural communities.

SERVITES’ women development activities are spread to both rural as well as urban slums. It is looking for appropriate partner organisations to support the women with seed funding to initiate income generating activities.

Lack of sanitation is a public health disaster. It consigns nearly 3 billion people - half of humanity - to life in almost medieval conditions, without access to latrines and unable to practise such basic hygiene as washing their hands in safe water.

EcoSan Mission of SERVITES

The year 2008 was announced as the International Year of Sanitation by the United Nations. In response to the issue related to sanitation, few like-minded organisation came together to discuss on the topic of sanitation and found it appropriate to start a movement for sanitation among the people at the grass-root. Tamil Nadu EcoSan Initiatives, which is a networking body for health and sanitation. It has equipped itself to address the sanitation related issues in the community with the technical support from EcoSan Services Foundation, Pune.

Toilets for Human Dignity: With the 33% funding subsidy agreement with the Tamil Nadu State Government for constructing family ecosan units, SERVITES under teh network it had initiated called Tamil Nadu EcoSan Initiatives constructed 50 family EcoSan toilets with the partnership and support of Unicef. This funding subsidy agreement with the State Government is a fantastic opportunity to make a profound impact on the communities of this area, and the Tamil Nadu EcoSan Initiatives is committed to promoting this as an excellent sanitation development model to be replicated throughout the region.

SERVITES are striving to attend to the issues related to water and sanitation which are very essential for a healthy living.

One of the most challenging problems of our times is homelessness. While we continue to record improvements in dealing with poverty, homelessness has been plagued by an unimaginative response from policy makers. The apathetic approach of successive governments is symptomatic of the disease that ails India’s housing system.

A decent habitat for the poorer sections of society will not only contribute towards their well-being and real asset creation, but also catalyse overall social and economic growth. The priority for housing ought to be higher than education and health. For many people in the developing world, the land on which they live is their only asset. If that property is not publicly recognised as belonging to them, they lose out on social benefits.

SERVITES' Social Housing Initiatives

There are various categories of slums in Chennai; unidentified, identified, recognised, notified and unauthorised housing. The report divides informal housing into three segments: insecure housing (unidentified slums) where people have no property rights and are most vulnerable to eviction; transitional housing (recognised slums and identified slums) which exist in Government records and are gaining de facto rights; secure housing (notified slums and unauthorised housing) where people do have some property rights and can’t be evicted summarily.

SERVITES in partnership with overseas organisation, so far constructed 93 houses for the homeless urban poor. As the demands continues to increase, SERVITES is looking for potential supporting agency that would come to it help.

Peacebuilding aims to resolve injustice in nonviolent ways and to transform the cultural & structural conditions that generate deadly or destructive conflict. It revolves around developing constructive personal, group, and political relationships across ethnic, religious, class, national, and racial boundaries. This process includes violence prevention; conflict management, resolution, or transformation; and post-conflict reconciliation or trauma healing, i.e., before, during, and after any given case of violence.

As a grass-root organisation SERVITES strives to transform the conflict situation by way of adopting multidisciplinary, cross-sector technique or method to establish and sustain relationships among people locally.

It has evolved an action plan to bring about lasting social transformation and peace by working with different stakeholders. SERVITES is equipped with persons trained on the nuances of Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding.

Tourism is an important economic activity in any country of the world. First and foremost, tourism provides employment to a large population in India and the amazing thing about it is that not much skill-set is required to be employable in this industry. Secondly, tourism helps in foreign exchange and regional development in some of the backward or not-so-well known places. Foreign exchange indirectly/directly impacts business, advancement, education etc. Tourism generates a huge amount of revenue which goes into development of various sectors of a economy.

It is because of tourism that local culture (handicraft, local tradition) of some places which were on the verge of extinction are getting preserved . This in a way gives livelihood to the residents of a particular place.

Tourism helps in development of a sustainable infrastructure which helps both the host and the tourist alike. Invitation

SERVITES invites interested individuals and groups around the world to make a visit to our organisation and we shall help in the arranging the local travel, boarding, loading and certainly to visit out villages where the development works are taking place, either the works of SERVITES or to places where the member NGOs having their mission. Your visits will help you to learn the culture of people here and we learn your culture.