Samerth Charitable Trust

The objective of Samerth Charitable Trust is to accelerate a humane, sustainable and equitable society by enabling marginalized communities to gain access to basic entitlements, especially water, education, livelihood and equal rights for disabled people.

Major Interventions:

Water Management: The NGO uses the participatory ground water management (PGWM) principles and emphasize on Building, Reviving, Repairing and Reconstructing Water-Harvesting structures through its initiatives. Groundwater is an essential resource for farmers, especially in arid to semi-arid regions where the rainfall is a most non-reliant phenomenon. The enormous amount of usage of groundwater for drinking and irrigation purpose has sounded alarm bell for everyone as the deterioration of groundwater quality is a problem that has created severe water crisis.

The accessibility to water does not only fulfil the need for domestic use, but has a greater impact on the family’s health and livelihood. The availability of water due to construction of RRWHS in this arid and unforgiving land has ensured focus on often neglected areas of women’s health and education amongst girls.

Education: The main focus is on the Improvement in the quality of learning outcomes; Increasing awareness amongst parents towards importance of educating their children; ensuring the continuation of education and retention of children from distress migration affected families along with strengthening the implementation of ‘Right to Education Act’. Several ‘Seekh Kendras’ (learning centres) have been established with the support of Seekh Mitras (community volunteers) to support and facilitate learning in migrant households. During the pandemic, all the programmes moved towards integrating technology by using learning tools through digital mediums; using digital platforms for teacher training along with training community youth in the application of digital platforms, tools and apps.

Disability: The NGO works towards creating an inclusive society and that include disability. The Ahmedabad programme houses a day-care and vocational centre for children / young adults with a disability which also offers community-based rehabilitation services in severe cases. 

Livelihood: To address the pressing issues of livelihood for PVTG (Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group), PwDs (People with Disabilities) and Small landholding farmers, Samerth aims to strengthen the process of claiming individuals as well as Community Forest Rights under Forest Rights Act and by the means of Sangathans (Community Based Organizations), working on the conservation of the forest as a source of livelihood, community forest management and conservation.