This project started in 2010 in Mysore and Hassan district of Karnataka, aims at improving the credibility of the health care delivery system and to promote community participation in health care by building the capacity of the Village Health and Sanitation Committee (VHSC) and Arogya Raksha Samities (ARS) to fulfil their role effectively. The VHSC was created by the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) programme of the Government of India to manage health and sanitation issues in villages. The role of ARS is to strengthen the functioning of public hospitals.

The project aims to increase awareness of VHSC and ARS through training programmes, kala Jathas and Jana Samvada/Spandanas. The activities focus on creating a sense of ownership of the health facilities among the VHSC and ARS by:

• Increasing their awareness of Health related issues and support measures needed to safeguard the health of the community.
• Educating them on formulating village health plan and effective monitoring and evaluation of the health plan.

Shikshanavahini project – a five year project in partnership with ASHA for Education aims at strengthening primary education, by increasing the enrolment & retention of the children between 6 to 18 years in government schools with the involvement of the School Development Management Committee (SDMC), Gram Panchayat (GP) and the parent community of Bijapur district of Karnataka.
The project aims to achieve the following at the end of 2010:

• Enrolment of 30,000 children in schools.
• Quality driven learning environment to nurture 700 teachers of primary schools.
• Joyful and fun-filled educational experience in 100 higher primary schools.
• Enhance the skills of 7000 SDMC members to participate meaningfully in SDMCs.
• 700 SDMCs empowered.
• Educational funds of Gram Panchayats utilised for development of schools.
• SDMC pressure groups to be formed at Taluk level and one group to be formed at the district level.

Youth for Education and Sanitation (YES) is a unique project that empowers local youth to participate in improving quality of education and sanitation issues of their community. Guided by the Vivekananda philosophy of “transformation through youth” and Gandhian philosophy of “Gram Swaraj” , the project focuses on the power of the youth force to take responsibility for development of the local villages.

The project covered about 60 villages in the first phase and about five taluks of Dharwad district in the second phase.

The core activities of the project are:

• Youth for better India - Training Course on "Youth for Development" (Y)
• "Building Community Action to create pro-education environment and to ensure qualitative education for all children" (E)
• " Hygiene for healthy environment" - Facilitating safe water and sanitation services (S)