Many of the villages have no drinking water due to salt contamination of the local water table. Villagers often have to walk up to 5 kms to fetch drinking water. They suffer sight problems and blindness, stomach disorders and body sores through working in the saltpans. They can only work for eight months a year and fall into the hands of unscrupulous employers and moneylenders who lend money at 10% interest per month. They are malnourished and often hungry. Their life expectancy is low and infant mortality is high.
Supplementary evening schools and a weekly mobile clinic are organised in every village that SCAD work in. Great emphasis is given to setting up Women's Self Help Groups, which SCAD have found to be the most powerful agent for change to take place. Each woman contracts to save 50 rupees per month and the total savings are banked. With SCAD's help bank loans at reasonable rates of interest can be obtained and each group decides who should receive loans. There are now 1200 such groups with a membership of 20,000 women. Other help is given depending on the needs of the village as agreed with the Grama Sabha, the village council. Typically this might be helping the villagers repair or build local small reservoirs to catch and store the monsoon rain or to train families to start organic kitchen gardens to improve nutritional intake and family income. Small savings schemes have been set up in most villages to counter the hardship caused by the local moneylenders. A Credit Union is in the process of being established to encourage the formation of small local businesses.
The administrative centre of SCAD is on a 150-acre campus in Cheranmahadevi some 50 miles north of the southernmost tip of India. The campus has been developed with the help of Salt of the Earth. There is an irrigated model farm, fruit orchards, a residential school for disabled children, a Polytechnic and a Vocational Training Centre and an Engineering College. There is also a manufacturing unit, which supplies employment by making greeting cards, paper and other products.
