STRATEGIC PROGRAM AREAS

1. Education, Awareness and Training for Transformation
2. Self-Reliant Livelihood Enhancement
3. Preservation of Cultural Skills and Knowledge Systems
4. Value Based Education for Social Changes
5. Sustainable Ecology through Environment Regeneration
6. Alternative Health and Nutrition
7. Research and Advocacy for Peace, Femininity and Sustainability

PIDT pursues an holistic approach to development that is based on the comprehensive needs of the communities in which it works. While specific projects may fall primarily under one program area, our work is more often located in the productive space between program areas, borne of interrelationships that are constituent, rather than supplementary as is often the case with issue-driven interventions. The following, then, are both areas of focus for our work and strategies that are leveraged in the design of all interventions.

Education, Awareness and Training for Transformation
Through stimulation of enquiry, participatory exchange of opinion and consensus building, and opening minds to the possibility of alternatives, a motivational and attitudinal change towards transformation is initiated in favour of sustainable and self-reliant systems.

This is accomplished through the formation of samities, or community groups, that work toward enlightenment and transformation of the society. PIDT’s role is to catalyze discussion of values and to provide capacity-building inputs through training and necessary tools or materials. Children are seen as the vehicle of future change and so particular attention is given to expanding their opportunities and providing access to value-based education. More...

Self-Reliant Livelihood Enhancement
PIDT utilizes a two-pronged approach to livelihood enhancement, increasing savings and developing skills to facilitate self-reliance. There is a strong focus on empowering women by targeting them directly for organization into Self-Help Groups and training sessions. This combination has unlocked the latent potential in women to improve their income-generating capacity and to assert their status in the household and society. More...

Preservation of Cultural Skills and Knowledge Systems
Traditional culture, skills, and knowledge base are often among the casualties of broad national and international development schemes, as progress steps over history to achieve its advance. The resulting loss includes both the valuable contributions indigenous people have to offer the world and the sense of self-worth and belonging that is embedded in continuity.

Rather than doing away with old systems, PIDT seeks to revitalize cultural skills by adapting them to new contexts, thereby preserving and enhancing their relevance. This effort has tapped into crafts design and herbal medicines among other areas, in all cases linking practitioners to markets and helping them meet changing preferences and demands. More...

Value Based Education for Social Changes
Since its inception, PIDT has made child education, with an emphasis on the girl child, central to our work with marginalized communities. We are happy to say that in spite of the initial mistrust and resistance faced, education has become very much a part of the consumption basket of these communities. The people are now contributing towards continuance of child education and opening neighbourhood schools even after Government withdrawal. More...

Sustainable Ecology through Environment Regeneration
The areas we work in had been depleted of natural resources through commercial logging, single cash-crop plantation and heavy use of chemical fertilizers. PIDT has sought to reintroduce local seed varieties, organic farming methods, watershed development and plantation to re-green the land and harvest its bounty for sustenance of the people themselves rather than the greed of a few. Given economic constraints, our agricultural research also aims at cost reduction by developing farming techniques that are based on available resources and do not require high inputs. More...

Alternative Health and Nutrition
Most of the areas in which we work have a serious dearth of healthcare facilities of any quality, and women and children in particular often gountreated due to the high cost and unreliability of medical care. Poor health is compounded by inadequate nutritional intake and the impact of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which have contributed to high incidence of asthma and bronchitis.

Through herbal medicine development, PIDT has been able to tap into local resources and revitalize traditional knowledge to provide effective and affordable treatment in our Ayurvedic and Homeopathic clinics in Jharkhand. Organic farming and empowerment of women with respect to resource allocation have also provided crucial supports, improving the baseline nutrition status of the people. More...

Research and Advocacy for Peace, Femininity and Sustainability
Integrating research and advocacy with planning and project implementation activities is the way we conduct our work. Our action research develops out of and feeds back into all other program areas, whether for herbal medicine development, sustainable farming techniques, market research for local handicrafts, or the integration of existing child rearing practices with healthy child development models. When our community building activities have demanded that advocacy on behalf of the people be taken up with the government or local power structures, we have also worked with the people in that capacity. It is PIDT’s responsiveness to people’s needs and their cherished as well as latent values, even as we work for change, that guides our research and advocacy and ultimately makes for effective and self-sustaining programs. More...