In November 2014 we concluded the purchase of 2 acres of land near Chetpet, Tamil Nadu. This land is within 10 minutes walking distance from our Nandri farm, which in December 2013 was leased for 10 years.
Since the charity started in 1996 we have probably spent over €2 million on houses, schools, medical dispensaries, toilet facilities and clean water bore wells and many other miscellaneous projects. During that time our office staff and fieldworkers have moved from one unsatisfactory rented accommodation to another.
Finally, we will build a rural development centre which will provide a solid foundation for us in India through our partner Child Aid Trust. We already provide services for almost 2000 families, through our various programmes, including child sponsorship, mothers self-help groups, micro-finance income generation and medical programmes. We are developing a range of agricultural training programs at our Nandri farm. Our new rural development centre will provide accommodation for mothers who are being trained.
The RDC will have a reception area for the many mothers who visit us every day. It will have a medical room to attend to basic medical needs. There will be office accommodation for our office staff and a meeting room for our office and fieldworkers. We also expect to have volunteer accommodation and a large and small training room. There will be catering facilities for the hundreds which we expect to attend our training courses.
The RDC should enable us to double the number of families we are serving within the next three years. All this is only being made possible by a small number of donors who have made substantial donations.
We are currently reviewing plans with a local architect and hope to begin building in February 2015
Fred Crowe