Support our work: Why we need your support

Home

Why we need your support for our charity work in rural India

Poverty in rural India

India is now the world's tenth most productive industrialized country and the second-largest exporter of computer software. Its middle classes now outnumber the entire population of the US. But despite this, nearly a third of the world’s poorest people are Indian and there are still around 350 million people below the official poverty line.

While urban India may be getting richer, over 70% of India’s population live in villages and the gap between urban and rural life is getting wider. Many people in the villages remain illiterate and impoverished. The highly urbanised education system alienates educated people from villagers who have no voice and are unable to raise issues that concern them.

How does IVCS help?

IVCS is a small charity that supports sustainable development projects in rural India, projects which will have a lasting impact for generations to come. We provide financial support to cover start-up costs, such as building work, and to help existing enterprises to expand. Once a project is up and running, it can often support itself.

We raise money in the UK to support our partner project at Amarpurkashi, a village in northern India. We have had close links with this project for over 25 years, giving us confidence that your money will be spent well.

Here are some examples of projects or enterprises we have supported in the last few years:

Health

• A mother and child health centre was set up using a National Lottery grant and is now self-financing, even though fees are low and are waived for the poorest people.
• The project holds free eye camps which treat hundreds of poor villagers suffering from cataracts and other eye complaints. A very moving article about one particular eye camp can be found here

Education

• IVCS supported a local village to start its own secondary school. This venture was initiated by the villagers themselves, who were concerned that there was no local school for their children. We will continue to support this school until it is self-financing.
• Electricity and fans were installed in the local primary school to provide comfort during the very hot summer months.
• We contributed to the costs of building a hostel for the degree college and washrooms, toilets and a new hand pump.
• We paid for a new computer for the degree college, so that rural students are not left behind by the technology revolution sweeping across India.
• We supported the costs of running the annual science fair, a lively and popular participative event which presents science, health and technology issues to school students.