(Non Governmental Organisation Voluntary Agency operating in the coastal Karnataka Districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi and Kasargod in Kerala)

History repeats itself – but always with a difference!  It is a silent beginning somewhere by someone, it is a lightening intuition received by a few chosen ones, it has has always been the unnoticed.  Bloodshed of pioneering few that has brought about the evolutionary mutation involving progress and development.  Thanks to the divine dynamic invisible force that spearheads the evolution, inspite of the innate lethargy, immobility and destructiveness, day by day we grow unaware.
 

ORIGIN

The Founder Directors were

IT’S  PHILOSOPHY

While working for the poor C.O.D.P. has its own philosophy based on the following principles;

1)  Every individual is created in the image and likeness of God.  Recognizing the value of the individual and the capacity to develop, C.O.D.P. regards the person with esteem.

2)  Knowledge is power.  People can acquire this power which is the basis for social reform through continuous education and concientization.

3)  Human is a social being.  Therefore education must enable human to interact with other persons through group action to form people’s organizations.

4)  People’s organization will generate people’s power.  This should be strengthened with economic power.

5)  Thus everyone tries to realize one’s own potentialities and tries to improve himself/herself through self help and mutual help, then all will reap copious fruit, acquire bountiful riches and live contented human life.

GOALS & OBJECTIVES

1. To empower and equip women for self-reliance, dignified, just and equitable life in social, cultural, economic, political and spiritual sphere.

It was not so much the expert socio-science, nor the unseasoned theoretical knowledge of developmental principles but the practical experience of living with the people, working with them and loving them that has helped C.O.D.P. to learn from these simple people that it is ultimately the divine that is hidden in the human who has to enthuse, inspire and encourage this our united march, which at times is a groping in darkness and appears to be a leap in the abyss. Nonetheless, it is a sure and certain approach because the people are our resources, they are our leaders – they are the backbone and the cornerstones. In fact we firmly believe that development is people. All the projects and plans, awareness and education, structures and organizations, programs and implementations, methods and strategies, should ultimately benefit the people. In other words the qualities of life should change – from darkness to light one should proceed – through a gradual process of shedding our sub-human or earthly tendencies of selfishness, self centeredness, exploitation and then putting on a new life of love to live harmoniously, by sharing and co-operating with each other, with a clear vision of trying to make this world on happy sojourn to one and all.

In this groaning experience of ours, surprisingly not so much the rich, neither the so called existing leaders, political or otherwise, nor the scholars or wise of our times but some of the rural poor, the peasants and the farmers, the agricultural and other labourers, their women and children – it is the silent voiceless majority of our people – that we were able to befriend. Now when a youth group says “ today we know to run on our own”, when a villager says “we no more depend on you because we have more than 50 leaders committed to work for our own development”, when a Mahila Mandal would ascertain “by your motivation we did come together, we have learnt a lot from you, but now we want to try and see whether we can stand on our own legs and carry on” – it is this attitude that gladdens us the most. For the policy of C.O.D.P. right from the start had been building local leadership, believing in human potentiality.

C.O.D.P. was lucky enough to meet accidently or providentially so many partners in development down these years and the friendly association with these as equals has enriched us so much that many times we were able to walk happily hand in hand and learn from each other during our stroll toward our common goal. It is indeed difficult for us to single out any one in particular or prepare a list in a ranking order.

We are proud that with several others we have been walking together, learning together and working together. The continued involvement with the people and the sustained partnership with the various agencies has given us this form and shape as we are today. We still need to learn more from our experiences and from the experiences of others. Every learning is a painful process. We need constantly to die ourselves in order to rise anew each day.

APPROACH

1)  Participatory: Planning, implementing and evaluation.

2)  Animating: Building capacity of individuals and institutions to be the change-agents.

3)  Collaboration with government and non-governmental organizations.
 

PRESENT THRUST

Its thrust is animation and education whereby it strives to promote people’s groups and people’s organization through people’s participation.

To take stock of where we were going we conducted an evaluation of all our programs and activities in late nineties.  The evaluation made it clear that the C.O.D.P.  has its activities of one type or the other spread over more than 500 villages in the districts of Dakshina Kannada and Kasargod in Kerala.  There are full time development workers with C.O.D.P. who have built links with a large number of poor in the villages.  Its activities and programs have given rise to numerous concrete benefits.  There are skilled and committed personnel, and a number of community based organizations and groups involved in development.
 

TARGET GROUP

While working in development C.O.D.P. concentrates mainly on;

1)  Landless – scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and other agricultural and manual labourers

2)  Economically backward, semi-literate rural unemployed youth (men and women)

3)  Needy rural artisans

4)  Small and marginal needy farmers without other sources of income

5)  Women and children of the weaker sections and domestic workers.
 

WHAT IT DOES ?