Reach India which is an initiative of Freedom from Hunger works in the eastern and the north eastern states of India where incidence of poverty is very high.

With so much diversity there is also unity and strong bonds amongst different communities. Poverty and huger has no language cultures or religion. We work with local self help promoting organisations who in turn works with very poor communities. We focus on enabling communities to deal with their problem of povety and hunger and in the process we try to overcome some of the challanges that we face.

You are absolutely right.Freedom from Hnger,s work in India focuses on women. After all, no one works harder to end hunger than a mother with a hungry child. Freedom from Hunger helps her succeed. Women play a key role in the family and that is true nowhere more than in the developing world.

Women are the primary caretakers of children under the age of five—and these are the people most vulnerable to the ravages of chronic hunger and malnutrition.By contributing donation to Freedom from Hunger you can reach out to many mothers in India.

By equipping and building capacity of thousands of local community based self elp promoting organisations who in turs works with millions of poor women to change ther lives.

We also focus on training poor women how to access employment guarntee under Government of India's employement guarntee program.

How to confront malaria in the community ?

Social Performance Management

HOW TO ACCESS EMPLOYMENT UNDER VARIOUS GOVERNMENT SCHEMES

HIV/AIDS

HOW TO CONFRONT MALARIA

HOW TO START SMALL BUSINESS FOR LIVELIHOODS ETC.

In India, there is estimated to be more than three million women’s self help groups (SHGs) encompassing more than 50 million members. This dynamic phenomenon is growing fast.

SHGs are proving to be a catalyzing platform for rural women’s development on a massive scale. SHGs represent:
• a forum for social support to women;
• the opportunity to save and borrow enhances women’s economic opportunities;
• the opportunity to share and enhance knowledge and skills fosters positive changes in behavior and expands women’s’ social networks;
• and the growth and influence of SHGs in village life provide women important new opportunities for leadership.

These SHGs are promoted and receive services from local organizations, including farmers’ groups, rural and cooperative banks and specialized microfinance institutions: Self Help Promoting Institutions (SHPIs). These local organizations represent the single most effective means to reach large numbers of girls and women formed into SHGs in very poor, remote communities of India.

I think a major lesson about HIV prevention worldwide has been the importance of empowering women to have the courage and confidence to stand up to their husbands or "boyfriends" on the issue of being promiscuous -- and to resist their sexual advances (even at the risk of violence) when they know the man has been "playing around." This empowerment process seems enormously difficult, but research in South Africa has recently shown that microfinance groups of women (SEF) can be trained to be aware of their legal and natural rights as human beings and that learning together as a mutual support group can lead to creative, collective courage to take action. This training led to creative solutions to shame men who beat their women -- like coming out of their houses to clang pots together when they hear a serious argument involving violence coming from another house. What Reach India has shown is how to do such training in a very low-cost and effective way (learning conversations) and train hundreds of local organizations to offer learning conversations to hundreds of thousands of women in the poorest parts of India.

Since women are learning this knowledge in a group setting, they become empowered to stand up for themselves and make a difference in their own lives. They also spread what they learn to other women in their community. It's the power of many.

Reach seeks to make Credit with Education much more widely available by adapting it to the needs of a much broader variety of local organizations than just microfinance institutions. This includes those organizations I indicated in an earlier post: local NGOs, communicaty-based organizations, health clubs, farmer's clubs, etc.

Many organizations are working everyday with millions of poor people across rural India and enabling these many different organizations to help poor women save and borrow money while receiving the benefits of lifeskills knowledge, such as how to prevent and treat malaria, is so powerful. And as Chris Dunford indicated in his chat earlier, the power of women coming together to solve a problem and learn is so exciting.

Reach is an initiatives of FFH. I belive and subscribe to the mission and goal of both FFH & Reach India has set it for itself.

Reach is also an innovative solution to poverty and hunger by setting up social frachisee to reach out to millions of poor people.

The public in North America can help by supporting Freedom from Hunger, with whatever financial contribution they can make, so that Freedom from Hunger can reach 3 million poor families by 2010. Reach India is one important program of Freedom from Hunger that will enbale us to do that!

Also, we look to the public, people like you and the others with us today on Freedom from Hunger Day, to help raise awareness. If you have not already signd our hunger petition, please make your committment now!