Chethana for Change

Chethana, a network of grass root organizations in South India working against hunger and poverty, is a Joining Hands global solidarity partner of the Presbyterian Hunger Program (PHP-USA) with the Solidarity Campaign group (JHAH) in Sacramento Presbytery as its counter part network in the US that strives to address the inequities and sufferings resulting from the spread of globalization around the world, through community education, advocacy, alternative economic activities, lifestyle changes and spiritual grounding. While the world is organized around a global hegemonic neo-liberal economic order of market determinism, Chethana strives to resist it by being part of a global solidarity that strives to organize the world around Life.

Chethana is engaged with the most of vulnerable sections of Indian society (Dalits, Tribal, Women, Small and marginal farmers, Bamboo Workers/Rural Artisans, Tsunami Victims etc) and committed to the creation of a just, participatory and sustainable world order. We understand life as sustained in a delicate web of inter-relationships and fullness of life as experienced only in community with the rest of creation. In such a community, equity, participation, sharing, preferential concern for the poorest and the weakest of the earth and protection for all life forms in it are central values.

In the network of CHETHANA we have 18 Partner organisations which are spread over the 4 States in Southern part of India, with most of them being in the two states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Out of this 18 organisation 7 organisations are women headed groups. These organizations are working with such marginalized communities as Dalits, Adivasis (Tribal), Women, Small and marginal farmers, Bamboo Workers/Rural Artisans, Tsunami Victims etc. It is an autonomous entity committed to empowering them to build a just social order where human rights, concern for the marginal, preservation of the ecosystem, participatory democracy, cultural pluralism and decentralized governance are acknowledged as fundamental values.