INDIA DEVELOPMENT AND RELIEF FUND INC – N Bethesda, MD – Overview of volunteer & donation opportunities, services, mission, contact information on GreatNonprofits
Mission:
Our mission is break the cycle of poverty in India and Nepal by empowering marginalized people with skills, services and infrastructure grounded in sustainable development. We work directly with community-based nonprofits that operate with minimal overhead. We serve people regardless of religion or caste. We also work one-on-one with donors who have a specific dream of giving back to India.
Results:
For example, we helped an Indian-American establish a school in his native village in Uttar Pradesh. In the 80s initially served only one village but today provides affordable value-based education to 1000 students from 25 villages. These poor kids regularly outperform the state and local averages on their exams. In another instance, we funded a family planning pilot in ten villages in Haryana, a state notorious for gender discrimination. After that program drastically reduce birthrates, we helped our partner NGO introduce these self-help groups in more villages, and add training in women’s rights, healthcare, and business skills. Today these self-help groups send and lend collectively and organize thousands of workshops in their villages. This year, 9,000 women in 100+ villages participated in this program. 1,000+ have started businesses. 100% of the groups manage their own finances, a major accomplishment for women with limited literacy skills.IDRF has also turned disasters into opportunities for development. In the wake of the 1990 Odisha supercyclone, IDRF introduced and tested a new variety of water-tolerant rice. Hundreds of families, who used to lose crops each year to floods, received seeds and farm inputs to reestablish their income.