Vizhuthukal Trust

Tamil Nadu

The vision of the organisation is to strive towards transforming the de-humanized and exploited to

experience and sustain a dignified life.

Being a Dalit, Mrs. Nancy was affected by three dimensions - within the family, being untouchable and having been born as a woman. This phenomenon is common to all Dalit women. This kind of injustice unveiled by the society on the women folk hurt her feelings from childhood. This inner urge and burning desire motivated her to start an organisation for the cause of women, especially Dalit.

The founder's father was a school head master and she always had an inclination towards social service looking at the condition of the people living in remote areas of her village, especially women. Thereafter, she decided to start SHGs and also had offers to join the govt. but decided not to do so as that would mean having to succumb to political pressure. Slowly, the activities gained momentum and she increased the focus areas. She has received a lot of support from her husband. The organization is run by women and works for women beneficiaries from the dalit community (especially scavengers) irrespective of religion.

Mrs. Nancy has 16 years of experience in organizing the unorganized labours like bullock cart workers, farmers, domestic workers, scavengers and rural artisans and development works. She has organized 680 women self help groups. She is a master trainer in Entrepreneur development training and self help group members and leaders.

Vizhuthukal Trust primarily works for landless labourers, agricultural coolies and scavengers in Tirunelveli. Due to modernization and urbanization, agricultural activity has come down narrowly over the years. So women in the village find it very difficult to find any kind of work. The condition of destitute, abandoned and widowed women gets further worsened against this background.

Vizhuthukal Trust runs various development programs for the welfare of the rural community under Tirunelveli Corporation. One of these is their educational program, through which they support play centres. In a survey that the Trust conducted amongst these children, they learnt that many children had expressed that their wish is to celebrate their birthdays with their friends and family. So the organisation has a program for celebrating birthdays of children.

The organization's primary focus is to work for the betterment of children, women and the aged (primarily women). They do this through:

1) Organization of women working as house maids

2) Self-Help Group formation for women

3) education Support for poor children in slums/orphans

4) Support for destitute women who are aged

5) Children's birthday celebration programme

6) Income Generation Programme