Our vision is to help build a just society and our mission is to secure rights, health and development for marginalised people. Our work revolves around two main areas: health and community development. HEALTH
Our health programme focuses on prevention and care in HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and leprosy. We support children and adults living with these conditions. Our greatest focus at the moment is wo
rk with HIV positive women’s networks in 8 Districts. We work with them to ensure HIV infected children access care, and that HIV positive pregnant women use government services to ensure that they do not transmit HIV to their newly born children. Due to this work we have significantly reduced the number of children born with HIV in these 8 districts. We also provide some temporary financial support to families with sick HIV infected children or children who need to start on antiretroviral drugs. This is the work we are funding through our Global Giving campaign and we would welcome your support: http://goto.gg/34683
We have a long history of pioneering in this field. Arogya Agam was the first NGO in the area to start HIV prevention activities in the 1980s. In the 1990s we were the first to provide HIV care and the first to provide antiretroviral drugs. Between 1997 – 2005 we trained over 400 NGOs in HIV prevention and mainstreaming. After the Tsunami of 2004 we were the only NGO promoting much needed HIV prevention activities. We were among the first in India to use volunteers or ‘peer educators’ among women in prostitution and we were at the forefront of developing this model which is used today all over India. As well as s*x workers we also do a lot of work with transgender and gay people and those with alternate s*xuality – these highly stigmatised groups are often overlooked by other NGOs and national programmes. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Arogya Agam’s major strategy is to encourage and support community participation through people’s organisations and volunteers. We facilitate and support independent people’s organisations for the most marginalised in our society. We aim to bring awareness and create social change from within the community itself. This includes promoting social and economic development and campaigning for the rights of women, children, dalit and tribal people, transgendered people, s*x workers and others. Our work with women’s groups is well established. Arogya Agam was at the forefront in India of developing and working with women’s self-help groups since the late 80s. The local women’s federation is now registered as a mutual benefit trust and has taken over most of the work with 269 women’s self-help groups. Arogya Agam provides advice, training and credit linkages with government financial institutions. Much of this credit is used for micro enterprise. We have deputed two staff to assist with administration and accounts but apart from that the federation is self-financing. Arogya Agam encouraged and financed other NGOs to develop and refine the women’s self-help group and federation model and also provided seed money for credit. These federations have now come together at District level with nine federations with over 27,000 members, some federations from other districts have shown an interest to join. Their focus is upon women’s issues including violence against women and girls, s*x selective abortion and early marriage of girls. Arogya Agam advises on administrative and financial management of the federation. The success of this model of community-based organisation guides our work with other marginalised groups like Dalits and Aruthathiyars, Palliar Tribals, HIV positive, and Children. Arogya Agam is a fully registered Indian NGO working in Tamil Nadu since 1982. Having worked as a grassroots organisation in the same area for more than 30 years means we are well known and trusted by the community. Moreover, we have gathered extensive knowledge and expertise, which is essential to support lasting change.
