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SRISTI

FOUNDATION

ANNUAL REPORT

2016 - 17

Karthikeyan Ganesan, Founder and Director “Together let’s build

Sristi Foundation, Villupuram District, Tamil Nadu – 604304, India an inclusive and

www.sristivillage.org / sristivillage@gmail.com sustainable village”

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Dear Friends,

Warm Greetings from Sristi Foundation!

I am delighted to welcome you to these pages, detailing our achievements and activities for the

period 2016-17. As ever, we are immensely lucky to receive support from so many different

people and organisations in India and abroad, so on behalf of myself, Sristi Foundation, the

board of trustees, our staff and the entire Sristi Village I want to extend a huge thanks to each

and every person who has been part of our successes in the last year. Each of you has such a

strong belief in our cause, and the financial support and guidance we receive is invaluable in

making our work possible.

This year our supporters have enabled us to expand our farm through the development of the

new Sristi Dairy Farm, to implement innovative new water management systems, to react to

the disaster of major monsoon flooding by providing flood relief to local villages, and much

more. We are proud to have received a Social Entrepreneur Award from the International

Conclave in recognition of groundbreaking work with people with disabilities.

This year, we have also set for ourselves formalized long-term objectives, included in this

report, which we aim to achieve in order to realize our vision of an inclusive, self-sustaining,

holistic community committed to equality of opportunity for all.

I hope you enjoy this annual report for 2016-17, and I am pleased and proud to share news of

our progress over this financial year. We are dedicated to continuing that progress in 2017 and

beyond, including constructing brand-new, fully-equipped school buildings and launching our

formalized Farm Academy two-year training programme.

Without the continued support of our kind donors, supporters and volunteers, we would not be

able to carry out this life-changing work, so we thank each of you and hope we can look

forward to your continued support.

With many thanks to all,

Karthikeyan Ganesan

Founder and Director

Year in Review: a letter from the Director

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The Challenge UNESCO data reveals in developing countries, only 1 to 2% of disabled people receive education. Over 1.6 million people in India are registered disabled according to the 2011 Census and approximately 75% of them live in rural areas, where there are minimal education and training provisions for disabled people and they are often shunned from their communities. The India: Social Development Report 2016 – Disability Rights Perspectives states that there is a ‘disproportionate disadvantage, exclusion, and stigmatization suffered by persons with disabilities’ that are ‘caused by cultural, social and physical barriers that obstruct their effective participation in social and political life’.

Our Vision Sristi Foundation aims at enabling persons with disability and other marginalized groups to live as independently and as fully as possible through economic and social empowerment.

Our Mission An inclusive society where children and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are respected, valued and have choices to lead a holistic and dignified life together. Sristi Foundation believes in an inclusive and eco-responsible world, where everyone would be given the opportunity to reach his full potential regardless of disability, race, gender, etc.

Long-term Objectives

1. Sristi Special School to service 50 disabled students by end of 2019 in independent school

building with specialist teachers & physiotherapists and appropriate equipment.

2. Sristi Farm Academy to run with 30 trainees for first two-year programme from 2018-20 and to be 50% self-sustaining by end of 2020.

3. Create and implement five-year strategy for farm, to commence by end of 2017.

4. Create a formalized community-living model by end of 2022.

Vision, Mission & Objectives

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What We Do Sristi Special School welcomes young rural children with intellectual and developmental disabilities to provide them with special education and other rehabilitation services. Sristi Farm Academy is a farm and agriculture-based entrepreneurial residential training academy for intellectually disabled and marginalized people. Every 2 years, a new batch of 30 trainees will join our Sristi Village and experience our self-sustained, organic lifestyle while learning valuable and transferrable skills from our experts. Sristi Village is a self-sustaining and inclusive community enabling people with intellectual disabilities and marginalized people to live, learn, work, and generate income, thus allowing them to reach their full potential and giving them the opportunity to lead happy, dignified lives.

Who We Work With The people who live and are trained at Sristi Foundation often have no families or friends who can support them, and they are excluded from society so have very low self-confidence and are unable to lead independent lives.

Our Beneficiaries: Target group: Individuals with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities Age: 3-16 (school); 16+ (village and training centre) Gender: male and female Socio-economic status: preferably below poverty line Area: rural Tamil Nadu

Case Study

Shankar has cerebral palsy, because of which he was unable to find a job. He came to know about our community through one of our volunteers and approached us for joining our village community. He trained with us for one year and showed such aptitude in all he turned his hand to, and particularly to working with the cows, that after just one year, we decided to employ him as a farm worker. He is now a paid member of Sristi staff, and specializes in animal husbandry, taking care of the cows and taking them for grazing, looking after 10 cows with one other employee. He also trains our existing Sristi Village members in farming skills.

What We Do

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Awards and recognition Social Entrepreneur Award from the International Conclave for our groundbreaking work with people with disabilities. Best Special Educator Award from the Government of Tamil Nadu for our incredible School Principal Muthukrishnan innovative approach to teaching children with special needs. Government Celebration for People with Disabilities, where 1,000 people attended and our members performed and showcased their talents, and received prizes for their performances and in sports events. District Level Sports Meet for people with disabilities, in which six of our members won prizes for their sporting prowess.

Towards a self-sustaining village Water Management Contouring: As one of our aims for 2017 is to conserve water, we finished contour mapping our land and dug long trenches to collect rainwater and run-off from the fields. With the dug-up earth we created ‘bunds’, banks that sit along one side of the trench. These bunds prevent precious top soil being eroded and washed away. We planted the bunds with lots of nitrogen-fixing plants to increase the fertility of our soil. Grey-water management: Our long-term German volunteers Louis and Malte also designed and implemented a grey-water management system – a swale method which channels water from the plumbing systems to a water-harvesting pit after passing through the roots of water-filtering plants which remove toxins, to use for watering plants and irrigating the fields. Wells: As our land does not receive enough rain, we have tried to regenerate the water level. First, we tried creating a borewell and dug down to 450 feet, but even then the water was not sufficient. We therefore decided to build an open well, which luckily has been successful! The open well has two purposes – it gives us access to groundwater, but it also enables us to save a huge amount of rainwater so it has transformed the availability of water to Sristi Village.

Key Achievements 2016-17…

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Village Life Our community is ever-growing and remains as inclusive and holistic as ever. Our members participate in daily life through farming activities and often learn at the Special School alongside our students. As we develop our Sristi Village, our members will become formal participants in the Sristi Farm Academy in 2018, enabling even more of them to gain their independence.

Waste Management In May 2016 we implemented a new waste management system for Sristi Village. Now we divide the trash into paper, hard and soft plastic in small colored bins and the system is maintained by community members who arrange the transfer of waste around the village and to the waste dealer.

Expanding and enhancing our farm

Dairy Farm Our community members have been heavily involved in the construction of our new Dairy Farm building, which we have made from rubble, bamboo, lime plaster and adobe brick – all materials found naturally on our land. This building will be home to our cows, with a practical classroom space where we can train members in dairy farming. We are very grateful to our donors United Way of Chennai, CIOSA and the Battle of Buffet 2016 for funding this project.

Chicken Tractor Sristi Village has devised a chicken tractor, which takes the idea of the chicken’s natural habit of scratching and tilling the ground and utilizes the chickens to do this for us. It is a moving chicken pen that houses the chickens on a particular part of the land until that plot is ready for mulching and planting – an energy-efficient method that both feeds the chickens that give us eggs and prepares our land in a natural way. Chickens play an important ecological role as pest removers and can also help improve soil fertility.

…Key Achievements 2016-17

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Enriching our Special School Siblings’ Workshop The pressure that having a disabled child can put on a family is often severe, and the siblings often suffer un

der this pressure. We brought the siblings of our members into Sristi Village to participate in a special workshop to help find harmonious relationships, and had a special guest psychologist, Mr Kumaran, explain the importance of sibling’s relationship through various activities and fun games.

Clay Therapy We try to give our students the opportunity to participate in a range of stimulating activities and gain a variety of skills at Sristi Special School. This year we ran a special clay therapy with our lovely volunteer Fernanda from Argentina. Clay therapy has abundant benefits, including increasing motor skills, hand-eye coordination, fostering creativity and merging our students with nature, and of course it’s fun! A wonderful way to get our students out of the classroom and reconnected with the earth.

Spreading the word Battle of the Buffet Sristi Foundation was honoured to be part of the annual fundraising dinner Battle of the Buffet (BoB) 2016 at Chennai Trade Centre. We had the opportunity to advocate for Sristi’s work and for disability empowerment in general, and are proud to count them as one of our supporters for the Dairy Farm.

Cycle Trip Two of our amazing volunteers, Balas and Jonas, stayed with us for four months then decided to cycle home to raise awareness for disabilities – all the way to Meghalaya! They travelled 3,000km across 7 Indian states on their inspirational mission. They predicted taking 39 days… And in the end, they did it in just 29! And raised the profile of Sristi Foundation in the meantime with their spectacular feat.

…Key Achievements 2016-17

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Disaster Management This year there was an extraordinarily destructive monsoon in our area. Because of the relentless heavy

rain, some villages in our neighbourhood were destroyed. Together with many other supporters we

helped the villages Cuddalore, Kollanchavady, Kurinjipadj, Essalam and Aanpakkam by bringing the basic

necessary materials, such as cooking stoves, clothes, rice, groceries and other basic items to the villages.

At Thambipettai village we had a medical camp for the people there. Over 200 persons were screened

by doctors and consultation-cum-follow-up was provided for the villagers.

We are at the mercy of nature here, and we are very aware that the weather not only determines

whether our crops grow, but also has the capacity to wreak devastation. We therefore committed

whole-heartedly to the flood relief effort to try and mitigate the tragedy for our local villages.

…Key Achievements 2016-17

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Visits We were honoured to have many of our supporters and partners visiting Sristi Foundation this year. The visits included:

Buchman Trust

Our members and students gave stupendous performances for representatives of the Buchman Trust, whom we are very lucky to consider as one of our valued supporters.

Deepam Deepam offers day care with educational activities for

children and youths from Auroville’s surrounding villages

who have special needs. Sristi staff visited to gain

understanding of how similar organisations operate and to

see how rehabilitation services for children with special

needs, particularly in rural areas, can be best implemented.

Satya Special School 60 Special Educators, therapists and allied professionals from Satya

Special School visited Sristi Village to learn about how we work

towards giving independence to people with intellectual disabilities. It

was very valuable for us to have these specialists here with us, to

share best practice and for Sristi and Satya staff to gain ideas and

expertise from each other

Clowns without Borders France Brilliant actors from Clowns without Borders France came to perform for our students and members. Clowning brings a wondering sense of humour into our lives, and with this performance of the clowns’ theatre, Sristi Village came alive with laughter and there were smiles on the faces of every member of the audience.

Visits & Celebrations 2016-17…

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Teach for India 80 fellows from Teach for India, Chennai visited our village and took part with great enthusiasm and

energy in our farm activities. They participated with our community members in making floor mats,

helped to make a rain water harvesting pit in the village and learned the technique of weed control

through mulching. We were honoured to have Teach for India representatives taking part in our work.

Celebrations At Sristi Foundation, we are committed to equality and to respecting the religious beliefs of all people. We therefore participate in many celebrations, including Diwali, Pongal, Republic Day and Independence Day.

…Visits & Celebrations 2016-17

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New School Building In order to achieve our long-term goal of serving 50 students at Sristi Special School, we intend to construct a new building to house these students and improve our teaching facilities. This building will contain six classrooms and will incorporate space for an office for our teaching staff and for a trained physiotherapist to provide therapy to our disabled students. We have high levels of demand from parents in the local villages and beyond wanting to bring their students to school here, but at the moment we cannot accommodate them. We intend this to have changed by the middle of 2018.

Sristi Farm Academy In 2018 we will formalize our training for our members with Sristi Farm Academy. This is a two-year training programme based on a specially-devised curriculum, which is tailored to teaching intellectually disabled people skills in farm and agro-based activities – mushroom cultivation, organic gardening, dairy farming and bee keeping. Through our 2-year training, members will have the opportunity to develop their self-confidence and leadership, while they gain skills and in-depth knowledge of agricultural techniques. This experience will allow them to sustain themselves and their families through self-employment and thus, fulfil their dreams of independence. To achieve this goal, we will also facilitate the launch of their own ventures through guidance and support such as strategic partnership development, loan acquisition and marketing.

Future Plans for 2017-18

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Sristi Foundation wouldn’t exist, without all of the friends, supporters, well wishers and partners who work with us. We want thank all our partners for encouraging us, for helping us to get Sristi Foundation started and for supporting us over the last four years. Without you, we wouldn’t stand where we are today!

Organizations

• National Trust, Government of India

• Kinderlachen, Germany

• Weeshuis Der Hervormden, The Netherlands,

• The Leopold Bachmann Foundation, Switzerland

• Kanthari International Institute, Kerala

• FSL India, Bangalore

• Lebenschancen (Opportunity for Life), Germany

• Sristi France

• TYCL and Mughil

• United Way Chennai

• CIOSA (Battle of Buffet)

Individuals

• Mr. Arulmurugan and Friends

• Ms. Samantha and friends, USA

• Dr. Sasikala

• Mr. Saurin Nanavati, USA

• Mr. Roland Frutig

• Mr. Arivazhagan

Volunteers We were lucky to receive the help of myriad volunteers at Sristi Foundation this year – too many to name here, but we extend our heartfelt thanks to each and every one of them for their support, kindness and dedication to what we do.

Our Supporters

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Name of the organization : Sristi Foundation Executive Director : Karthikeyan Ganesan Project Address : Sristi Village, Kunamangalam, Thazhuthali Post, Tindivanam Taluk Villupuram District, Tamil Nadu – 604 304, India Mobile : +91 90 477 87 887 Phone : +91 41 47 23 30 70 Website : www.sristivillage.org E-mail : sristivillage@gmail.com Legal Status of the organization:

Registration : Registered under the Indian Trust Act Reg. 1009/2013

Income Tax Registration : Registered under the exemption u/s 80G of the income tax act 1961

Reg. No. 9165E(1658)/CIT/PDY/2013-14

: Registered under the u/s 12AA (b) of the Income tax Act, 1961 Reg. No. 9165E(1658)/CIT/PDY/2014-15

Ministry of Home affairs : Registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act 2010 (Prior Permission)

Reg. No. II/21022/94(0377-01)/2013-FCRA-III

Government of Tamil Nadu : Registered under the Person with Disability Act 1995 - Reg. No. 402/2015

Government of India : Registered under the National Trust, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India -

Reg. No. TSRI16513809802

Organization Profile