Projects - Fida International

New Life Community Development Programme

Chennai is the fourth-largest city in India and capital of the southern state of Tamil Nadu. Located on the Bay of Bengal coast, Chennai is a city of dichotomy—fast-changing and modern on the one hand and deeply religious and rooted in tradition on the other. Like other large cities in India, Chennai has a significant population of the urban poor who live in cramped conditions in slums and battle illiteracy, disease and a host of social problems regularly. The New Life Development Programme works for holistic community development across slums in Chennai. Started in 2001, the project works across nine communities in Chennai and focuses on tackling the heart of many problems—illiteracy. Through day care centres, it imparts education to children at the pre-school level. Night tuition classes are organized for children who are attending school. At these night tuitions, children are encouraged to revise what they have learnt and provided with supplementary skills. Many of the parents are relieved as the children are kept off the streets and meaningfully occupied while they are at work. The project organizes computer training classes to train the youth in desktop publishing, accountancy and programming to enable them to get jobs. Many of these students are school dropouts and extensive counseling is required alongside the skills training. The project runs nursing institutes and tailoring classes, which enable women to earn an independent income and lead to increased levels of self-confidence among them. The project also runs malnutrition eradication and healthcare camps in many centres. We work in the tsunami-affected village of Urur Kuppam. Besides providing relief in the form of boats and equipment immediately after the tsunami of 2004, we started a community development centre at the village to address some of the problems faced by its women and children. Tailoring classes, computer training and environmental awareness campaigns are some of the activities that have been undertaken at this project centre. This year, the project started a Community College, which is affiliated with the Tamil Nadu Open University. The Community College actively works to rehabilitate young people involved in street fighting or substance abuse and gives them the opportunity to learn in an environment that is friendly and motivating. The project has also initiated campaigns on environmental awareness, gender equality and HIV/AIDS awareness among the hijra (transgendered community) in some centres.