ADIRE is a registered charitable trust in India with a mission to improve the lives of rural poor and revive village clusters in ancient India by applying appropriate modern technology, renewable energy and local capacity building in cost effective and environment friendly ways. The Alternative Development Initiative for Rural Engagement (ADIRE) uses an innovative development model of RE-SKILL-HELP (Renewable Energy based production process) to transition rural people from the current conditions of disease, drudgery, darkness, and deprivations to a healthy community, green environment, clean energy, local jobs, and happy life in a SMART village.
ADIRE is about an Alternative Development Paradigm on several fronts. It is alternative to excessive dependence on traditional skills or government support to do anything. It is an alternative to conventional urban development, it is an alternative to subsidized rural dependencies, and it is an alternative to polluting fossil fuel, unreliable, corruption-ridden electric grid. This alternative is to help remove poverty by encouraging, financing and training hardworking honest villagers to control their own destiny. They are trained and re-skilled in the use of renewable energy, energy-efficient production methods, local resources, and complemented by the worldwide sourcing of skill and microfinance through the power of the internet. ADIRE also supports alternative communication infrastructure of good roads and high-speed Internet to harness connectivity as an unlimited opportunity of our times. We think it is now possible to have such highly developed smart villages through people to people initiative without excessive dependence on god and government. This process we believe will not only develop villages faster will also save the planet by not releasing pollutants and emission to the very limited amount of land, water, and the air we have for 7 billion people in the coming decades. ADIRE extends its activities through a four-dimensional Re-SKILL-HELP model:
Health:
No hardworking villager will remain unhealthy for want of clean water food, toilets, and healthy nutrition. We will provide tube well, latrines, solar water pumps, and green jobs. We provide health camps, bed nets, first aid,
Energy:
No village street will remain dark and unsafe to spread fear of insecurity from humans, animals and artificial nightly creatures like ghosts, demons, and demigods. We will provide solar street lights all night.
Learning:
No villager will remain isolated from the world. We will provide community TV and broadband internet. We will teach all students whose parents cannot afford to take care of them.
Production:
No honest villager will have a shortage of credit to start a home business or production center. We will extend microfinance of US$100-1000 within 3 months of application Thus though we will endeavor to remove poverty from the village, we cannot help if few villagers are motivated to only wait for the government subsidies and reluctant to work and pay for the services he gets from us form the income provided. Thus we are very strict in promoting honest and hardworking culture to build the twenty-first century SMART Villages.
ADI-RE-SKILL-HELP model for clean, sustainable rural development.
ADIRE is optimistic that it can achieve these objectives at minimum cost and subsidies as evident from the following two main projects.
PHASE – I JABAKA Project (To be completed in 2011):
JABAKA PROJECT Starting in 2003 in the poor state of Orissa in eastern India, ADIRE experimented with renewable energy to solve these problems in 3 villages Jahangirabad, Balabhadrapur and Kalyanpur ( aka JABAKA) and is now expanding to other adjacent rural areas. With developments in new communication, computing, the Internet, and small modern energy technologies, clean water, and sanitation, ADIRE is changing rural lives. Solar photovoltaic, energy-efficient TVs, compact fluorescent/LED lamps, biomass powered rural enterprises, and manure-based biogas cooking are some of its favorite technologies to improve lifestyles. ADIRE brings modern solar light to remove rural darkness, internet connectivity to remove age-old rural isolation, clean and affordable energy to power homes and businesses. Modern skills harness intelligent but idle rural talents for a sustainable rural livelihood. Research has shown that solar electricity and biogas/biomass cooking is much cheaper and cleaner than the fossil-electric grid system. ADIRE empowers and enables rural poor without outrageous resource consumption and environmental damages. If we do not do the modern development through RE-SKILL now in the villages not locked into the polluting fossil energy, it will be harder to do it later as in the developed countries, who have to learn the modern RE-SKILL process. Please see JABAKA project for more details.
PHASE – II SMART-VILLE (Proposed from 2011):
A Sustainable Model of Advancing Rural Technologies for Villagers’ Involvement in Lifelong Learning and Empowerment. <.p>
Current Collaboration Together, ADIRE and SHAMA have been supporting grassroots development initiatives in the state of Odisha. Their joint endeavors have directly impacted the lives of 3,000 individuals in JABAKA villages. ADIRE and SHAMA aim to assist 10,000 individuals in an 11-community target area around JABAKA by 2015 to bring higher visibility of clean village development and better economy of scale.
PROGRAM
Overview The SMART-VILLE Program aims to improve village life via a clean, green, no-emissions rural development model. By investing in clean products and technologies, the rural poor become self-sufficient, improve community services, and mitigate pressures on local resources and environment, all without subsidies.
Justification $1,250,000 for capital projects, microlending, and program expenses between 2012 and 2015. The SMART-VILLE Program addresses the below categories, all important in reducing rural poverty and isolation and diminishing villagers’ desire to relocate to crowded and environmentally troubled urban areas:
Objective 1, Health To improve the health of 5,000 poor members of the SMART-VILLE communities through nutritional programs, health education, and enhanced sanitation and healthcare facilities by 2015.
Objective 2, Education To provide education for 300 children and 500 adults in the SMART-VILLE communities through resource-rich learning facilities, extracurricular activities, scholarships, and professional training by 2015.
Objective 3, Quality of Life and Production To enhance quality of life for SMART-VILLE community members by improving IT, clean energy, household conveniences and infrastructure through micro-financing resource-efficient devices, and creating 1,000 income-generating production jobs for men (40%) and women (60%) by 2015.
Objective 4, Evaluation and Documentation To create an International Sustainable Development Institute to evaluate SMART-VILLE Program components, document case studies, test new technologies, and share lessons learned with at least 20 communities, organizations, social enterprises and government actors worldwide by 2015.
IMPACT:
Local Improved educational and health facilities. Creation of 40+ new, local, “green” microenterprises. Creation of over 300 local, “green” jobs. Water conservation. Increased utilization of natural resources (biomass, organic waste, solar energy). Improved agricultural techniques. Reduction of 10-15 MT harmful emissions and estimated savings of $40/MT, or $500 annually per family remaining in village rather than choosing to move to an urban area.
Regional/National/International Reduced rural-urban migration. Decreased overcrowding and poverty in urban areas. Encouragement of (and potential adoption of) affordable, environmentally-friendly technologies and rural development policies nationally and internationally. Rural economic and social empowerment.