Sowing the seeds of holistic development in Thenur


The project in Thenur, Tamil Nadu is our first attempt to exercise the idea of holistic rural development. The rest of this page captures the key challenges faced and progress we have made since the inception of the project.

Key challenges

Lack of primary health care facilities and sanitation
Very high school drop out rates
Viable farming and agricultural practices, animal husbandry
Lack of around-the-year employment opportunities mainly during non-agricultural seasons (or failure of rains) Water management - during rainy season

Programs currently being executed


Health center:
An outpatient health center with 2 beds, a laboratory and a dispensary has been successfully completed. The health center currently provides first aid, but will be shortly enhanced to provide primary health care.

Few notable highlights:
The architectural design and plan were done with the help of volunteer civil engineers and architects. Architectural design reflects rural life - is simple but practical and appealing.

Most material used in the construction is low cost and environment friendly like earthen bricks, earthen tiles and thatching.

Most of material for construction was locally sourced - An all women's unit took up the brick making, using hand press machines, during course of construction.

Most of the labor for the construction came from the village

Has helped establish trust among the villagers about the mission of Payir and role they can play in their own development

Reading room:
The construction of reading room too has been successfully completed along similar lines to the health center. Please refer to the plans to understand how the land donated to Payir has been put to use.

The major objective of the reading room is to provide an informal education to children of the village (4 - 14) yrs. Emphasis is on imparting useful real life education which the children can relate to and put to quick use. For the children between 4 -9 yrs the main subjects would be tamil and mathematics.

In addition to the above the room will also serve a small library - providing newspapers, magazines and books.

Organic farming:
Payir runs an organic farm within the land donated to it. The main goal of the farm is learn, develop and train villagers on new/traditional environmentally sustainable agricultural techniques. Currently we have a paddy plantation, a coconut grove and a garden of herbs.

We have started producing coconut compost within the farm; this is being used to fertilize the grove and garden. We hope to shortly make this available the villagers for them to use and sell.

Self Help Groups:
Facilitated by the interaction between Payir and the local villagers a self-help group has been formed by the villagers. This group has come together to self finance and run a small diary project. This group consists of both men and women, which is significant considering currently the village women are not part of any initiative outside their homes. Also notable is the fact that idea was conceptualized and brought to fruition by the villagers themselves, with Payir merely playing an advisory role.

Payir believes that this is a milestone in our efforts. We hope that this fuels development of more self groups, which would take us further in the stated objective of empowering the villagers.

Programs under planning


Effort to source electricity through solar power:
We are in advanced stages of finalizing on a plan to generate electricity (1.5 KW) for electrifying the whole project using solar panels.

Vocational training:
We intend to provide meaningful vocational training to village youth that can be used a source of income. Some ideas are - auto repair (mainly two wheelers), motor winding.

Leadership training: One of our efforts is to develop local leadership. We hope to put together a program on basics of law, panchayat raj and general leadership skills.