HIV/AIDS prevention and control programmes among underprivileged run by an NGO in Madurai and a drinking water initiative by an NGO working for women's empowerment at Nalgonda in Andhra Pradesh have been issued grants under the Japanese Grant Assistance for Grassroots Projects (GGP).
The Madurai-based Association for Rural Development was extended $1,00,121 for establishing a home care and dispensary for homeless HIV/AIDS patients. The Grameena Mahila Mandali was given $79,751 for setting up de-fluoridation plants at Nalgonda.
Presiding over a function where the grant contracts were signed with the NGOs, Kazuo Minagawa, Consul-General of Japan here, stressed the importance of the GGP, an official assistance scheme of the Government of Japan, in a developing country such as India with a large proportion of marginalised and disadvantaged population. The GGP grants for the two NGOs were the first for the fiscal and likely to be extended to three more NGOs by the year-end.
Mr. Minagawa signed the grants contract with Kulandaisamy Joseph Vincent, secretary of the Madurai NGO, and Dubala Vijayalaxmi, president of the Grameena Mahila Mandali.
In Madurai, the Japanese aid will go into a project to establish a home care and vocational training centre and dispensary to improve living conditions of destitute HIV/AIDS patients. It seeks to provide residential care, non-formal and formal education and skills training to orphaned children of HIV/AIDS patients.
The Nalgonda NGO will utilise the funds to set up six de-fluoridation plants that will serve the population in six villages. According to Tomonori Minowa, Consul, the GGP has been envisaged as a mission to encourage initiative, participation and ownership of local communities in sustainable self-help efforts to improve their socio-economic situation.
