Organisation of Development Action and Maintenance (ODAM)
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Mission Statement
VISION: ODAM believes in a society that ensures equal opportunity, inclusive development, human dignity, and environmental sustainability. MISSION: ODAM, as a development organisation, works with marginalised and indigenised communities with a focus on women, children, marginal famers, and unorganised workers, for livelihood security, human dignity, and environmental sustainability. VALUES: • Accessible to the community. • Participatory approach in decision making. • Equality among staff and community. • Transparency in functioning. • Accountability. • Collaborative. • Gender balance. • Eco friendly.
About This Cause
A Social Commitment ODAM was founded by Mr. G. Jeyaraj, a teacher, who worked in remote villages in Tamilnadu and confronted by the struggles rural poor faced. During his teaching profession, he could interact with the rural poor, and understood their living conditions, primarily due to lack of services and access to such facilities. He was moved by their plight and wanted to respond to the needs of these people. ODAM, as an expression of his social commitment, was registered in 1995. Mr. Jeyaraj eventually resigned his job as a teacher and became a social worker. ODAM, as its vision, believes in a society that ensures equal opportunity, inclusive development, human dignity, and environmental sustainability. ODAM, as a development organisation, works with marginalised and indigenous communities with a focus on women, children, marginal famers, and unorganised workers, for livelihood security, human dignity, and environmental sustainability. ODAM has a team of around 20 staff at different levels with experience in various sectors and community mobilization. Programmes in Community Development: The mainstay of ODAM programme for development is community empowerment and strengthening rural livelihood opportunities. The key intervention strategies of ODAM include community mobilization, capacity building, and linkages with mainstream services and resources including government welfare schemes. These are primarily to empower children, adolescent girls, women, indigenous people, and small farmers, by addressing issues related to education, health, livelihood, human rights, renewable energy, and climate change. • Strengthened 1226 women Self Help Groups (SHGs) consists of more than 17000 women members and for a housing loan programme the ownership of land was changed in the name of 1500 women. Through micro finance support from various banks and Rastriya Mahila Kosh SHG our women received more than 50 crores and started micro enterprise activities. This project is funded by Tamil Nadu Women Development Corporation. • ODAM - Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya Residential School (KGBVRS) for 100 girl children who are the former child labour/orphan/semi orphan/school drop-outs are in Narikudi village is one of the initiatives and maintained by ODAM for the past 19 years. This project is funded by both Government of India and Government of Tamil Nadu through Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan scheme. • ODAM has a strong volunteer base globally through ODAM International Volunteers’ programme, received more than 100 volunteers from Europe, USA and Australia worked with Women SHGs, teaching Spoken English, Photography for the KGBVR School girl children, Website development, Bio-diesel and other sustainable technologies. • Jasmine Sisters’ Design is one of the impacts of ODAM’s International volunteers’ programme which aims to improve the sewing skills of rural SHG women to produce innovative and new products to the global market from the year 2024 with the support of Australian volunteers Ms.Chris and Ms.Tamara. • Abolition of Modern Slavery: The adolescent girls become school drop-outs in their high school education and forced to work into the Sumangali Plan, operated by textile industries in Virudhunagar district and other districts in western part of Tamilnadu, where they are promised to earn money for their (dowry) marriage with a contract to work for a minimum of three years. ODAM empowers adolescent girls to prevent and protect them from such modern slavery in textile and garment industries with the support from Freedom Fund and LUSH Foundation, UK. • Reproductive Child Health (RCH) for the young mothers and new born babies and Indian Systems of Medicine and Homeopathy an awareness programme among the communities, especially reviving the Sidhdha the traditional Tamil medicinal practices through the Local Medicinal Practitioners jointly with the Government Sidhdha department health programmes implemented in 27 villages in Tiruchuli and Narikudi blocks with the support of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, New Delhi. • Child labour is rampant in these areas, Children dropout of school because their families need them to contribute financially. Some even migrate to other states in India to work in industries with hazardous working conditions and are almost kept as bonded laborers. Girls end up in the in the nearby match industries or brick chambers. In the early years ODAM established 7 Specials schools for Child Labour, rescued 650 children and mainstreamed to education in Tiruchuli block with the support of National Child Labour Project. Programmes in the Appropriate technologies: In South Tamil Nadu, Ramanathapuram, Virudhunagar, Sivagangai and parts Pudukottai, Tutucorin and Tirunelveli are highly prone to drought due to semi-arid nature of terrain and hot & humid climatic conditions and, periodic southwest monsoon is very erratic and failure of monsoon is a common occurrence in this region. Consequently, failure in agriculture practices and loss of agriculture produce would affect both small and marginal farmers and agriculture labourers. Ultimately migration has been a continuous event from rural pockets of this region to urban and coastal regions for employment opportunity. The eastern part of Virudhunagar district where ODAM is working for the past 28 years has the erratic rainfall and relentless invasion of Prosopis juliflora in this region resulted in reduction of cultivable agriculture lands and an increase in fallow land. As a result, the farming community needs to migrate, women are under clutches of cruel money lenders in the name of Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs), no new employment opportunities for youth, girl children become school drop-out and the adolescent girls are under the modern slavery forced to work in the textile industries in the western part of Tamil Nadu. In this situation, ODAM started working on to identify alternates to replace Prosopis juliflora or to positively utilize it as a locally available resource. So, we approached various organisations and research institutions for technical guidance. Based on that we started working on appropriate & sustainable technologies to address the challenges of Prosopis juliflora through effective and sustainable utilisation of it to reduce the burden of rural communities in energy needs. Followed by small-scale enterprises to ensure the ownership of the local communities and ultimately to reduce the GHG emissions. • Biofuels extraction from non-edible tree borne oil seeds are the major area of research and cultivation of Jatropha an alternate crop to replace Prosopis juliflora is planned by ODAM in 2004 through various research. ODAM started its Swaraj Biodiesel Production Centre in 2006, as a research and demonstration unit for biofuel and renewable energy research, that experimented with biodiesel and biogas using non-edible tree borne oil seeds such as Jatropha, Pongamia, Calophyllum inophyllum, Silk cotton, rubber seeds and neem. Cultivation of Jatropha in 500 acres also supported assistance of India Canda Environment Facility (ICEF) co-funded by Siemenpuu foundation. • Biochar soil amendments is an emerging innovative practice to improve the soil conditions (Soil carbon), a knowledge of the indigenous communities in Amazon before thousands of years called, ‘Terra preta’ ultimately reduce the synthetic fertilisers and increase the top soil moisture. This technology was introduced to ODAM by Mr.Risto Isomaki, Siemenpuu foundation, Finland. ODAM is conducting continuous experiments and field trials in Biochar Soil Amendments and the results are very impressive and has been published in the websites of International Biochar Initiative and LEISA. As a carbon negative technology, Biochar buried in the soil will absorb Co2 from the atmosphere. In our project area biochar production out of Prosopis juliflora’s wood logs is one of the major livelihood options for thousands of families for the past 40 years, who are un-organised labour and we aim to promote Biochar Farmer Producer Organisation to make them visible. ‘Biochar Soil Amendments’ will be a new product to the market which will create new employment avenues exclusively for women. • Bee-hive type biochar briquettes are produced by the mixture of Biochar powder, water and clay soil (binding agent) and dried in the sunlight. It will burn with blue flame without any smoke for 45 minutes and will emit heat for further 75 minutes. As a sustainable energy source replacing the fossil fuel, it can be useful for domestic purposes like cooking, heating water for TB patients and can be utilised as room heater in hill stations. We came to know this technology through wood energy magazine an article by Dr.P.D.Grover, IIT New Delhi by the year 1996. Later this technology was tested and prototype press was developed by Design Impact a USA based non-profit in the year 2010 and we are planning for further development through community enterprise mode. • Using traditional mud kilns for biochar production for the past 4 decades has no further improvement in technology development. Improved Biochar Production Kiln (IBPK) is the technology developed by RuTAG a division in IIT Madaras in partnership with ODAM for baseline data. It reduces the duration of the conversion from firewood to Biochar and increases the conversion rate. The unburnt (10%) firewood is another challenge solved by 100% conversion. Also, it relieves the biochar producers from occupational health issues (respiratory problems). • Wood vinegar from Prosopis juliflora is the technology supported by University of Kentucky students with the support of ODAM team. It can be utilised as a cost-effective pest repellent by the farmers. • Fuel oil from waste plastics is another technology developed by the students from University of Kentucky headed by Professor. Dr.Jefrey Seay.