DON BOSCO ANBU ILLAM, SALEM and BOSCO GRAMIN VIKAS KENDRA, KEDGAON, AHMEDNAGAR jointly organised a “Model Village Development” project,  5 villages have been targeted with a special focus on Driver related families on 23rd March 2023. This project was supported by the Cummins India Foundation (CIF) through its corporate responsibility initiatives (CSR).  This projected focused on empowering the community in the field of water, education, health, livelihood and social engineering. In a special way, a livelihood support programme for those who lost their earning member (widows) compensates for their life through livelihood support.

This programme was initiated in Sankagiri block which is in the district of Salem and is a hub for Lorry body buildings and associated works, has been a great revenue-making source for the company for many decades. The city which once was a lush pasture for farming and agriculture changed tremendously after the arrival of motor parts manufacturing lobbies in the mid-’60s. It has become the major economy since then. In order to fulfil their CSR commitments they were looking for an opportunity to contribute to the development of Sankagiri.

Because of the evergreen Lorry business, a huge amount of the labour force partly from Agriculture and other allied activities have been attracted towards this truck industry which once started with just 20 lorries, in the beginning, has now grown leaps and bounds and at present accounts for about 25,000 lorries employing a great workforce. The most significant information regarding these industries is that over 80% of the workforce belongs to the male population. In other words, it is the main breadwinning source for most of the population living in and around Sankagiri.

Many drivers, due to accidents, lose their lives and leave their families alone without any hope. These bereaved families suffer many hardships to run their livelihood. So, in order to support their livelihood and to make them self-sustainable, we distributed 50 female does to the needy 50 widows. Also, we introduced basic tailoring to the working villages and more than 90 women got benefitted.