CORD
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Mission Statement
CORD’s vision is to harness human resources and enable the poor to transform their lives through programs driven by themselves. Mission of CORD is to facilitate integrated and sustainable development of the poor with their active participation, resulting in their overall development and empowerment.
About This Cause
The CORD’s comprehensive program is based on the four following core principles and strategy: • Participation: Empowering program recipients to believe in their potential to participate actively and create change. While CORD’s team work with an open attitude of learning from the community to help them serve better, it also shares best-practices and learning to create collective intervention for the community’s development. • Integration: Integrating various intra-sectorial interventions within one specific sector along with interventions by other related sectors, leading to inter-sectorial interventions too. • Networking: Enabling rural people to network and collaborate at various levels within different groups in the villages, and with government departments and other stakeholders to increase utilization of available resources from the government and others for faster resolution of issues and optimal utilization of resources. • Sustainability: Building the capacity of leaders and communities to make collective decisions, assume responsibilities, and adapt programs. Dr. Kshama Metre, National Director of CORD is responsible for CORD’s all national operations in consultation with CORD Board and diverse management team having expertise in community institution building, community health, rural development, management, gender justice, micro-finance, agriculture, disability management and rehabilitation, local self-governance, natural resource management, livelihood development, trainings etc. Dr. Metre is a pediatrician by profession and is very well known as a development practitioner who nurtured CORD’s model for past 36 years since its inception and has many national and international recognitions for CORD’s work in rural development in India. Comprehensive as well as different thematic program team members in the National Director’s team as well as different program sites of CORD in India too have different years of professional and community development experience ranging from 2 years to 25 years in Community Based Organization (CBOs), participatory rural development work tools and techniques, development action, experiential training and development activities. CORD brings poorest of the poor and the marginalized people to the centre stage of their development holistically as an active contributor at the bottom of pyramid i.e. Panchayat, a model of decentralized local self-government. Under the Program of CORD there are various specific programs addressing specific issues. However, it is well-known that the poor and marginalized have multiple issues that impact their lives. Hence, all CORD programs interlink with each other as and when required, as a part of the model. Beginning its work in 1985 with maternal and child health in rural communities especially poor women, CORD learned that an isolated health program only touched the tip of the iceberg of the villagers’ interconnected problems. The poor villagers are endlessly caught in a cycle of poverty, ill health, lack of access to livelihood opportunities and resources; poor education or no education; poor governance, communication and transport; lack of water and electricity; as well as poor hygiene, nutrition, and sanitation. The low status and low self-image of women and some of them having alcoholic husbands further worsen and complicates the hardship of women and children. Although, the government has programs on various issues, there is huge disconnect and there are substantial gaps between the policymakers, the implementers and the communities. It was clear that there was a great need to address the local issues of the villagers, providing local solutions. Further, it was required that people should demand structural and systematic changes collectively and locally through active involvement. With this understanding, CORD began its comprehensive integrated program after its initial two years of its inception in 1985. CORD has its presence in Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Taminadu, Odisha, Uttrakhand, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh. Its program outreach is in 286 Panchayat covering 970 villages in India. The National Director’s Office & CORD Training Centre in Sidhbari is the resource and training centre for its programs for all sites. Moreover, it is an experiential learning centre of excellence for various other development stakeholders on multiple issues of rural development. In 2007, besides replicating the comprehensive inclusive program in these states, CORD began an orphanage for girls called ‘Chinmaya Vijaya’ near Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh. It is serving over 100 girls in Kaza was established following Tsunami in 2005 Further, inspired by CORD’s work in India, separate and independent trusts and entities were established in Sri Lanka (CORD Sri Lanka) and the US (CORD USA), under the aegis of Chinmaya Mission Worldwide. Various thematic Program components of CORD: • Community Based Organisations (CBOs) leadership and institutional capacity building • Financial literacy and access to microfinance through Self Help Group (for women). • Community Based livelihood-in the farm and allied and non-farm and service sector • Social Justice and Gender sensitization • Strengthening Local-Self Government through Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) • Health, Nutrition, Sanitation and Hygiene • Community Based Inclusion and Rehabilitation for persons with disabilities • Adult literacy-basic reading and writing skills • Alcohol and Drug Abuse Awareness and Management • Participatory and Natural Resource Management. CORD’s work has been recognized in various international and national level/forums. Some of these agencies of repute include: 2017: Savitribai Fule Memorial Award to CORD for its work in Rural Development CORD’s work in the area of comprehensive community inclusion and rehabilitation of persons with disabilities (PwDs) has been recognized in year 2019 with Microsoft Equal Opportunity Innovation Award by the Nipman Foundation; in 2017 with a National Award for being the Best Institution by the President of India at New Delhi; in 2016 received Leonard Cheshire Disability Award from Governor of Punjab and Haryana; in 2006 with National Nina Sibal Award. 2017: The Best Self-Help Group (SHG) Promotion Institution Award in Himachal Pradesh to CORD by NABARD on the occasion of the Silver Jubilee Celebrations of the SHG Movement in India. 2015: First Prize from Global Development Network (GDN), for the Most Innovative Development Project to institutionalizing and empowering small and marginal women farmers received by CORD at Morocco. 2013: National Commission of Women (NCW) honoured Dr. Meera Krishna, site Director of CORD Branch in Siruvani for her outstanding work on women’s empowerment in New Delhi 2004: National Women’s Commission Award to CORD for Women’s Empowerment. 2002: Technology Award for Tissue Culture to CORD’s SHGs (earlier called Chinmaya Rural Primary Health Care & Training Centre) from Institute of Himalayan Bio-resource Technical Centre. Dr. Kshama Metre is the National Director and trustee of CORD since its inception. She has received Padma Shri-2008 from the President of India; Guardian International Development Achievement award-2012, Prerna Strot Award (from Chief Minister of H.P 2018), Ojaswini Award for Excellence in Service-2000 amongst many accolades for CORD work, Rajya Mahila Samman in 2015 by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Govt. of India. CORD reaches out directly to 80,000 rural people over 1100 villages and 550,000 people indirectly through its comprehensive integrated as well as thematic program components (as on March 2021). CORD Training Centre is a center of excellence in grass root rural development issues and has trained more than 45000 people from various backgrounds and institutions globally including NABARD, MoRD, NIRD&PR etc. Various thematic programs of CORD mentioned above too have various horizontal and vertical dimensions and expansions in terms of their reach to marginalized sections and comprehensive development models in and for rural India. CORD Future expansion plan: The vast richness of rural India and its people’s potential needs to be harnessed. Rural to urban migration is rampant. Cities are becoming crowded and unmanageable. Urban and rural divide is increasing. Out of 70% of rural India, 40% is still very backward in remote areas. Remote India specially is left far behind. CORD’s future expansion would be in these unreached areas. It will first focus in a Panchayat as a unit to implement its comprehensive integrated rural development program as per the local needs and context. For this CORD will identify local women and men as leaders from these areas and impart them training at CORD Training Centre Sidhbari. CORD will then support these leaders to develop the identified needy remote Panchayat. The oasis of change in this Panchayat would serve as an example too for rural transformation for other stakeholders to learn and emulate. CORD envisages Rural Prosperity the Rural Way, by preserving and enhancing rural India’s immense diversity and its varied hues of life rather than merely copying cities. CORD’s need-based, community driven programs on diverse thematic issues could be initiated as per the wishes of donor/development agencies area of focus matching needs of the communities. Finally, CORD nurtures and empower community’s in rural India to become self-reliant through convergence with Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) as institutional of local self-government for sustaining active engagement of people specially women at the bottom of pyramid for long term action and sustainability.