Our Founders
Father Vincent Ferrer & Mrs Anne Ferrer were the founders of Rural Development Trust (in 1969) and Accion Fraterna (in 1982). Accion Fraterna (AF) is a sister organization of Rural Development Trust (RDT). RDT is a well-known NGO in the country working on multisectoral development programmes with its main focus on dalits, tribals, women, the physically & mentally challenged and other backward and disadvantaged communities. Its programmes covers sectors like horticulture, agriculture, rainwater harvesting and rural infrastructure. Accion Fraterna focuses on sustainable agriculture, watershed development, non-farm employment, ecology and environmental issues.
Our History
With a history of over Four decades AF has undergone several evolutions in its approaches and phases
Vision, Mission, Dharma and Core Values
All people in rural areas lead a respectable and dignified life with economic security, food security, social equity, gender equity, in an atmosphere of democracy, peace, cooperation and community support; and all the people and institutions live as ‘Eternal Trustees of Mother Earth’, and follow a culture of simple living and the ethics of conservation.
We are committed to promoting livelihood security, self-reliance and human dignity for poor farmers, working through their institutions, lead by women and promoting drought-climate resilient agroecology, agri processing and non-farm livelihoods.
We appreciate that we are not alone in this endeavour; that there are several stakeholders like government, CSOs, industries, media, universities, research bodies, scientists etc with whom we join hands and work together for synergic results.
- Concern for others
- Work beyond duty
- Pursuit of excellence in work
- Reaching as many needy people as possible
- Compassion, concern, honesty, sincerity, hard work Equality of human beings, particularly women, poor, disadvantaged
- Concern for nature, biodiversity, ethics of conservation, sustainability
- Excellence in execution of activities
- Inclusive, participatory in decision making, planning and implementation
- Transparency in all transactions and accountable to all stakeholders
Core Principles and Approach
- Participatory approach to development, lead by women and their institutions, actualising their potential and availing all opportunities—government, banks, NGOs, private sector
- Developing agroecology rainfed farming systems and practices to be chemical free, low external input, drought-resilient, food secure, regenerative and remunerative to rainfed small and marginal farmers.
- Promoting natural farming, to be sustainable in terms of income for farmers, food security, public health, agro-biodiversity and farm-ecology. The focus is to reduce dependence on chemical-intensive inputs in irrigated farms.
- Diversification of family livelihoods into new off-farm, non-farm and skill-based sectors with particular focus on women and undereducated youth
- Augmenting farmers’ income by processing, value addition and marketing and by promoting farmer-owned social enterprises.
- Demonstrating effective agroecology rainfed farming systems and practices to policymakers, CSOs, research bodies and other farmers and lobbying for their scaling up across the state
- Representation to policy forums for favourable and eco-friendly policy environment, in general, and for farmers, particularly on issues concerning rainfed agriculture, drought mitigation, climate change