Welcome to AWWA

Self-respect and self-reliance for underprivileged women

Affus Woman Welfare Association (AWWA) is a NGO running community development programs in South India. For ten years we have been working with local groups, offering training for capacity building. Programmes include: 'street', 'working' and 'orphaned' children's formal and non-formal education; employment; vocation and skills training; community health; service provision to the most marginalized community; capacity building for local groups and partnership in programmes to improve their living environment in urban and rural areas. AWWA also aims to provide free education for underprivileged girls and 'street' children to make them self-reliant, confident, economically independent and socially responsible.

AWWA's 'Street Children' programme is dedicated to raising public awareness and bringing about solutions to the problem. If your heart has ever been touched by seeing a poor little child begging in the streets of South India and you wanted to do something to help (but you felt completely helpless to do anything) then please go through this website to learn more about this problem and what you can do to make a difference. A mind and heart that cares, awareness presentations through multi-media, contributions, talking and sharing information among friends, education, self-help initiatives and just good old-fashioned kindness are all that is needed to get these kids off the streets. Getting involved is a big part of solving any problem. Even a little involvement will help these kids so why not get involved!

We have a six-point-programme that we are developing to help street kids in South India. This program consists of providing the following: Food; Clothing; Shelter; Medical Assistance; Education, and Skill Training. This is a hands-on project that requires funding and volunteers. We welcome Corporations, Industrialists and Donors to get involved as a way of giving back something to society. The only thing really required to help AWWA's Street Children Programme is for good people like yourselves to step forward and do something. Please contact us today if you would like to assist, either financially or personally.

We are working hard in urban and rural areas to foster a state of self-respect and self-reliance for this underprivileged section of society, emancipating them from the yoke of caste discrimination.

Learn more about our main supporters — Please take a moment to learn more about our supporters, without whose help we would not have been able to do so much.

Main Areas of Work

Empowering women through livelihood; Empowering 'Street' and 'Working' children; Skills and vocational training; Health and sexual / reproductive rights (awareness programmes); Building peace and ending gender-based violence (awareness programmes); Non-formal adolescent education programmes; Computer literacy for children of:
single mothers; HIV/AIDS affected parents and CSWs for eventual employment; Medical, health and awareness camps.

Mission and Objectives

Our Mission is the Economic and Social Advancement of the poverty stricken and impoverished people of India. We propose to accomplish this goal through Educational and Vocational training classes aimed at teaching the impoverished female class to succeed on their own, teaching them skills and trades so that they may successfully integrate into working society.

AWWA believes that the people who are underprivileged can improve their living conditions only when they realise their potential and become self reliant. We are active to:

• Bring about change in the socio-economic status of target communities
• Collaborate with other organizations, associations and socities in India and abroad who have similar objectives
• Develop literacy skills within target communities
• Establish day care centres for mentally retarded people and provide for their treatment and rehabilitation
• Free women from oppressive male-dominated practices such as: wife beating; desertion; child marriage; dowry-related exploitation; and alcoholism etc.
• Improve income levels of target communities by training them in various disciplines and income generating activities
• Open vocational training centres to impart training in areas such as: Beauty; Tailoring; Soft Toy Making; Knitting etc.
• Organize conferences and seminars on social and economic matters of current interest, and for the benefit of rural needy people
• Organize Crafts Melas
• Promote, develop and implement developmental projects/programmes that seek to organize the poor around vital socio-economic issues
• Promote, develop and implement women's developmental activities
• Promote SHG's to increase their income
• Promote community health programmes and undertake integrated child development service programmes with the cooperation of national and international child development agencies
• Promote social housing with a view to inculcate community understanding and social living within the rural and tribal poor
• Promote welfare activities for the development of deprived children
• Provide a platform for women to market their products
• Serve disadvantaged groups of the society; irrespective of cost, creed and colour.
• Undertake projects related to integrated rural and tribal development aimed at the positive development of humanity
• Undertake the rehabilitation of disabled women and children through income-generating programmes such as Zari work, Hand-Embroidery and Kasuti work.

Education and Awareness

As an organization with social concern, AWWA has embarked upon a programme to educate underprivileged women who face multiple hardships of class, caste and gender. By imparting skills useful in gaining livelihood, these hapless creatures could so easily become tools to bring about a transformation in society; they can truly achieve emancipation from the yoke of caste discrimination.

Educated and uneducated alike, there continues to be restricted (almost non-existent) employment opportunities due to ongoing discrimination, lack of education, experience and confidence. One of the best ways to empower these people is to provide them with skills they need to become independent and thrive. Over the last 3 years, utilising our Summer Camps, more than 200 women have now learned special skills and we continue to work in both urban and rural areas offering training in such areas as:

• Banjara Work; Beauty culture; Conducting Exhibitions of Work; Cutting & Tailoring; Embroidery; Mehandi Design; Pot Decoration; Soft Toy Making; Zari Embroideryand kasuti Embroidery

We are providing all these activities voluntarily, and we ask for no assistance from government or Non-government organisations. We have provided support for 8 years and in this this time our activities have been heavily restricted due to a lack of resources.

As an organization for social concern we urgently need to spread our activities and in so doing we have set up Training Centres (Affus Arts and Crafts Centres) at, Hubli in Karnataka and Anantapur and Hyderabad Andhra pradesh - offering skills development for orphans, vulnerable women and children. The institution is offering 75 valued courses to women.

Aside from offering training, the institution is also providing counselling to those who have completed their training programmes. We are striving, in our own small way, to bring about a change for the better in society. We are now bringing Zari and Zardose Embroidery training programmes to the remote village of Dharwad District (Holtikotti) in Karnataka and groups have been formed to provide training to urban women who typically earn their livelihood by Beedi making and flower tying (at a meagre wage of rupees 12 per day!).

Register for free training — If you are interested in signing up for any of our free training courses please complete this form and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

Health and Education

During our camps it was discovered that women were facing critical health problems like Leucorrhoea and Menorragia, and various gynaecological infections were found to have caused this. In maintaining Awareness Camps our volunteers have closely interacted with these women on issues that are seldom spoken of in an open manner, urging them to visit local hospitals for examination. Consequently, local doctors have also begun to interact quite substantially with these poor women.

Health consciousness is of vital importance as these women are languishing under abject health conditions, and innumerable health problems go unaddressed due to the poverty and ignorance of their families. AWWA has conducted several free Health Awareness Camps for women in the remote villages of the backward Anantapur and Nalgonda districts.

Consumer Awareness Camps

Many women are forced to beg for a living but employment continues to be the only real way out of life-long exclusion. During childhood girls are often excluded in the community, and as they mature they may not be aware of their existence, let alone their value and rights as equal citizens. As initially stated (listed above) AWWA is conducting a range of skills training but we also offer Consumer Awareness Camps in the following areas:

• Pulse-Polio Programmes; AIDS Awareness Camps and Health Camps