**ASSOCIATION FOR SARVA SEVA FARMS (ASSEFA), INDIA **
279, Avvai Shanmugam Road Chennai, Tamil Nadu, 600014 India

Since 1968, ASSEFA has helped create thousands of self-sufficient villages in Tamil Nadu (the majority), but also in 6 other states. ASSEFA seeks to fulfill Gandhi’s teaching of uplifting the situation of the hundreds of millions of poor people in India. To achieve this goal, the first task was to secure land for farming, under collective ownership, for the landless. This was possible with land donated for this purpose, and later, by small farmers pooling together their land to create such villages. Today ASSEFA is one of the most important non-governmental organisations in India. About 11,000 villages - home to 5,000,000 people - are involved in the integrated ASSEFA development model.

Community centred approach is the working strategy of ASSEFA towards achieving it’s goal. Gram Sabha, the assembly of all people in a village, is involved in identifying village issues mostly social and strategies in mitigating the issues. It also acts, as a mediator for negotiating with the Government and public organisations on development issues. The Women self-help groups (SHGs) address women related issues. Women SHGs build up their resources at the community level in the form of savings and revolving funds, which are managed with proper legal entity. The SHGs are federated at the area level for efficient action and building up external linkages.

Several village based organizations have been established to support the activities of women SHGs. The Nidhi Foundation is a financing organization completely owned and managed by people themselves that pools the savings of SHG members and lends the funds to meet the financing needs of women enterprises. The Sarva Jana Seva Kosh provides management services in support of the credit programs. The Sarva Seva Gramodhyog Samithi provides technical assistance to women enterprises and faciliates linkages among the production units engaged in similar entrepreneurial activities. The Sarva Seva Education Trust provides support for the educational needs of family members. The ASSEFA Dairy Development Federation provide sophisticated marketing arrangements for dairy production. The Sarva Seva Habitat Promotion Ltd attends to the construction of affordable housing units for members