The World Future Council is a new voice in the global political arena - one that draws on our shared human values to champion the rights of future generations, and works to ensure that humanity acts now for a sustainable future.
Former Executive Director, and Member of the Jury
The Prize For Outstanding Vision And Work On Behalf Of Our Planet And Its People
The idea of 'right livelihood' is an ancient one. It embodies the principle that each person should follow an honest occupation which fully respects other people and the natural world. It means being responsible for the consequences of our actions and taking only a fair share of the earth's resources.
Member
The world's first on-line university for peace and development studies
With faculty drawn from amongst the leading scholars and practitioners in their fields internationally, TPU is the world's first truly global, on-line Peace University designed for government and NGO practitioners, policy makers and students at any level working in the fields of peace, conflict transformation, development post-war reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconciliation, and global issues.
Since 1996, Transcend has offered more than 800 on-site training programs for over 12,000 participants around the world, using the TRANSCEND manual "Conflict Transformation by Peaceful Means," published by the United Nations. Now, studying together with professionals and practitioners from around the world is possible through TRANSCEND Peace University's on-line courses, offered in cooperation with many of the leading practitioners and scholars in the field.
COVA started years ago in an attempt to address the problems of grinding poverty, discrimination, and neglect of people in the Old City of Hyderabad, India, prey to politically motivated violence. COVA has grown into a State-wide network with national linkages, with over 800 organizations. It has now developed an international presence. Effective in several fields of activity at the grassroots, COVA is enabling poor communities of Muslims working with their poor Hindu, Sikh, and Christian brothers and sisters to find their legitimate places in the fabric of national development. COVA is paving the way for new beginnings in communal harmony in the sub-continent.
Foreword for COVA Annual Report 2006:
The pages that follow detail the activities of a small, dedicated group from civil society, who struggle to fulfill the promise made by our forefathers who brought us political independence. The ancient city of Hyderabad, unique in its social and cultural heritage of the Deccan, was born out of the love of a Muslim prince for his Hindu wife. Since that civic origin, this city flourished over the last four hundred years under Sunni rule, Shia aristocracy, Sufi spirituality, Kayasth and Brahmin administration, all set at the very geographical center of over a dozen venerated Hindu shetras of pilgrimage.
The vibrant life of this culture exemplified the unified economic strength of our communities, which even in the last chaotic days of Moghul rule continued to sell its famous textiles around the world, produced by the incomparable skill of Hindus and Muslims. The unfortunate social stresses, and their grave consequences, produced by colonial rule and the rifts of political partition, have till recently remained below the horizon of popular debate amongst our peoples. The violence unleashed by continued neglect of poor communities, illiteracy, lack of gainful employment, or effective political voice, all fuelled by sectarianism, extremism, and narrow-minded religiosity, have awoken civil society to contest development issues with decision makers. COVA plays its part in working unceasingly for communal harmony through empowerment of poor, and disadvantaged, communities of all religious denominations. † Top
Starting from its work in the Old City of Hyderabad, COVA has been led by civic demand to help develop larger and larger state-wide and national networks. COVA has even been one of the first organizations in the sub-continent to respond with immediate volunteer help and resources to aid earthquake victims in the far districts of Kashmir, and our Director works as a peace emissary within yards of the Line of Control. One day soon, we may even be able to reach out our help across the border to our brethren, whose family histories are inextricably linked with ours.
But what COVA has done, or can do, is only a very small civic beginning to recover our spiritual and cultural heritage in its entirety. The peoples of the sub-continent of Hindustan are known as tolerant peoples. But much more than tolerance is needed to repair the neglected destruction of community links. We must recover once again an active cultural appreciation of the daily enrichment of our lives by the close interaction of many different, rich traditions of life, woven together by Muslim fingers, polished as gems by Jain hands, sung in praise of God by Sufi and Vaishnavite saints, told as stories derived from the ancient Pali, or recent Dalit experience. The loss of even one tribal tradition will diminish everyone of us.
We have just celebrated the birthday of the Prince of Peace. May His Sermon continue to ring in our hearts: 'Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.'
Vithal Rajan, Chairman
January 1, 2006
Chairman, Advisory Committee,
ASP is a unique organization, the only one of its kind in India, owned by dalit [formerly known as 'untouchables'] women, managed by dalits, and created specifically to bring dalit communities out of poverty to take their rightful place in Indian society. ASP will create wealth for dalit communities by following good banking and business practices. At the same time, it will work out new ways of strengthening all dalits, create social safety nets for the community, develop the skills of their family members, and build up their assets. It will help them find better incomes, start new businesses, and improve their quality of life.
Foreword for Annual Report 2006
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
For some time now I have emphasized with the staff of ASP that ours is an unique institution very different from NGOs, MFIs, or even other coops. Why do I say this? We are different from NGOs because we are a 'business' which will within the foreseeable future fully support itself, and even create surpluses to give grants to community organizations. We are different from MFIs because we are fully owned by our own community of the poor. We are different from several other coops because we are a business with a special social agenda for community development.
If we hold fast to our vision, we can become in a short time a community and national leader, and a model for the world. Why do I say this? We are over one-and-a half crores of dalits in Andhra Pradesh alone. If we take India as a whole, we are at least 20 crores of dalits, that is, as a community we are more numerous than the total populations of England, France and Germany put together. We need to realize our strength and importance in the world of humanity, what we can give them, what we can teach them.
Since Independence, over the last 60 years our government has sorely neglected the core agricultural sector, and done very little for rural development. Most of our people work in agriculture, receiving pitiful wages, and we live in rural areas with few amenities, and rudimentary infrastructure, despite several governments making promises before elections. The time has come for us as a community to build up our own assets, wealth, and livelihoods through our own institution, ASP. That is the goal that ASP sets for itself.
The backwardness of Indian agriculture is based on, and a result of, low agricultural wages. If through our own institutions and mechanisms we raise our living standards, our people will not be available to work for below minimum wages as at present. The agricultural sector will have to be reorganized, and both productivity and total production increased to reach viability. Further, increasing wealth in our own hands will quickly change the rural scenario; local businesses will develop, and infrastructural development will come to our doorsteps, like roads, piped water, electricity, trucking, services, banks, schools, hospitals.
Till today the ruling elite of our country think of us as welfare recipients, ignoring the fact that it is our labour that forms the pillars of the nation. By developing our community through our own institutions we will build the country from the bottom upwards. We would have served not only the dalit community and other poor people but the entire country of India and through our work and foresight made India into a modern country, economically, democratically, culturally and scientifically. ASP is a tool in our hands to achieve this magnificent goal.
There are wars going on all over the world - whatever the political situation, these wars are between the rich countries and the poor, between rich communities and poor, with the rich wanting to seize all control over resources. This looting over the last 100 years has resulted in the deaths of over 10 crore innocent people in wars. If the dalit community of India steps forward and takes control of resources, financial, natural, intellectual, it would have created a new world of justice and peace, and shown a new way of development for all the poor of the world.
SKS Microfinance empowers the poor to become economically self-reliant by providing financial services in a sustainable manner. Launched in 1998, SKS Microfinance is one of the fastest growing microfinance organizations in the world, having provided over $ 155 million (Rs 670 crores) and has maintained loans outstanding of $53 million (230 crores) in loans to nearly 557,000 women clients in poor regions of India.
Founder- Trustee
AME Foundation is a development-oriented, non-government organization, devoted to promoting sustainable agriculture practices. It is born out of the concern for people in difficult farming circumstances in the midst of widespread environmental degradation. AME Foundation is committed to livelihood improvements of resource poor farmers through eco friendly farming systems.
Advisor
ThinkSoft Consultants is a development consultancy group in India bringing cross-disciplinary expertise to provide customized services to clients. Our consistent mission from the day ThinkSoft was founded in 1990 is to design and build the soft infrastructure necessary to empower poor communities and enable them to engage with the opportunities and challenges of development.
Development projects often suffer due to an unbalanced approach that leads to a tunnel-vision view of complex issues. It is assumed that if technical aspects are addressed, the social or "soft" aspects will take care of themselves. Experience has shown that this fragmented approach usually does not result in expected outcomes.
Founder-President
The Rural Telecom Foundation, a not-for-profit civil society organization, is dedicated to achieving affordable telephone access for the poor of rural India. President
Yugantar, a civil society initiative committed to collaborating with individuals and groups working for decentralized governance, rights based approaches, gender rights, and innovative application of technology.
Yugantar focuses on
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Providing advocacy platforms for activists and scholars to voice their concerned dissent
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Advocating community based access and control over public resources by deepening democracy
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Helping to promote self-reliance at the community and individual level for optimal use of local
Using communication media for a movement away from fear and apathy Founder
Srinivas Rajan Memorial Scholarship
Ramanujan Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics, University of Madras http://www.unom.ac.in/math.html
By 2007 WRITERS WORKSHOP completes fifty-three years of uninterrupted existence devoted to the cause of Indian Writing in English, in the belief that only imaginative writing of quality by Indians will enable the English language to play a significant role in the mosaic and palimpsest unity of India's cultural ethos. It reflects the increasingly supple and varied use of modern English as a creative medium by Indians, and suggests that English is now an intimate part of the Indian cultural psyche.
