Village Based Centres

Avani has always been deeply cognizant of embedding its activities in the local community and its natural resource base. The organisation is largely led by the local community: right from those who manage it to those who work within it, Avani is an echo of local, in ethos and form.

Given its remote location the lack of infrastructure such as roads and electricity posed serious challenges when the organisation was still in its nascent stages. To ensure that the programs reached and impacted the wider community, working out of a single location did not seem feasible. With support from the village communities, Avani successfully adopted a decentralised approach. Over the years, Avani has set up six permanent village-based field centres that function as the focal point of Avani’s relationship with the surrounding villages. Every village based centre offers individuals the opportunity to learn and earn from activities such as weaving, hand spinning, knitting and the cultivation and collection of raw materials for natural dyes. Several women and girls also participate in the awareness raising initiatives conducted by our volunteers and interns through the medium of self-help groups which meet at the village based field centres on different occasions such as handloom day, women’s day and so forth. 

These village centres today enable the project’s continuous engagement with the local community despite it being geographically spread out.