United Artists' Association

Their activities are in the following areas:

• Tribal Rights: UAA implemented ‘Project Samudram’, a state-level Federation of Women Fish Workers’ Organisations working in Odisha for the development of fisher folk living on the coastline of the Bay of Bengal. UAA facilitated its formation. Samudram aimed at empowering traditional marine women in all aspects of life, and succeeded in protecting and promoting marine bio-diversity from intrusion of trawlers, produced value added fisheries products like hygienically processed and packaged dry fish and increasing the income of fisher folk. Samudram was the recipient of the ‘UN Equator Initiative Award 2010” for Reducing Poverty through the Conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in 2010.
• Agriculture: UAA worked for the promotion of organic farming for sustainable agriculture to reduce the use of chemical fertilisers and synthetic pesticides to make soil healthy and produce safe food. They covered 10 villages, eight gram panchayats (local self-governing institutions) in Ganjan, Odisha as part of this project. They also promoted the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) amongst 59 villages in the area. Their project covered 1,495 farming families in 52 focus villages.
• Marine Resources: The organisation worked for the promotion of kappaphycus farming amongst coastal village residents. They also initiated access to markets and market dynamics to community leaders to help enhance the income of 8,800 fish workers. UAA reached out to 46 coastal villages and two urban local bodies in Odisha. Another initiative of theirs was a report on fishing communities’ perceptions of income generation schemes in association with Greenpeace.
• Environment and Sanitation: Water Aid supported a sanitation intervention in Puri that was implemented by six network partner organisations that included UAA. In the second phase of the project, the promotion and construction of toilets in individual households in 100 villages were to be implemented by a consortium of NGO partners identified by UAA.