Velan Foundation Award 2015 Recipient

Every year, the Velan Foundation Award recognizes a Canadian-based charity doing good work overseas. SOPAR, the 2015 Award recipient, recently came to Velan to show a video of the results of Velan’s generosity. 

History

Almost 40 years ago, the combined dreams of a visionary couple—Angèl and André Gingras–led to the formation of SOPAR, a non-profit society in Canada aiming to alleviate poverty in Andhra Pradesh (northeast of Velan’s plant in Coimbatore) and other Telangana states in India.  Thus far, their efforts have reached 6,000 villages representing over four million people.

Since they believe that development starts with the people, they practice a 360-degree approach to encourage villagers to engage in their own development process and effect change on multiple levels: social, financial, environmental, physical and psychological. They also emphasize the importance of a sense of unity, responsibility, and leadership, and equal representation of women and men.

Their programs focus on water and sanitation, women and widows, children and youth, and food security. Thanks to their efforts more than 6,350 bore wells have been built, 215,000 women have been empowered, 300 rural schools have been provided with libraries, and more than 513 farmers across 25 villages are now practicing organic farming. In addition, 10,000 community leaders have been trained to drive village development projects and 350 women leaders are regularly trained to run self-help groups across 1,500 villages.