15. mit Rajen

Whats your Name?

Nallathambi Rajendraprasad short Rajen

How old are you?

55

Where do you come from?

I come from a small village: South Thamaraekulam (it means, we had a lots ponds full of lotus in my village), in Kanyakumari District, Tamil Nadu. Now I live in Vembar.

What is your family like?

I have 7 siblings. I am fifth in family. My father is no more, but my mother is 85 years, living in my native place. Our families part of village is called kumbulankundu.

I met Lucy (my wife) in a place in northern Karnataka. We feel in love and got married. Than we got a daughter in 1987, who is a dentist in Bangalore now. Every year on 26 to 28 of December all family has a get together. (After a long time of calculating...) When all are gathered we are 37.

What is your profession?:

I am a social worker.

I studied Bachlor and Master of Social Work and Master of Administration.

I had founded with some more people. I had been director for 5 years 2002-2007, than executive director: 2007-2011. So now I am a only Volunteer in PAD, now I am honorary secretary of board.

PAD I support by bringing funds and networking with donors and bigger forums. For example I was evolved in a green manifesto for over all Tamil Nadu, which is to copy European green parties and developed a green movement on state level.

Furthermore I do consultancy work in different countries and and teach PRA-Tools. (PAR=Participatory Rural Appraisal = Community centred research tools)

What made found PAD and how is your vision in reality?

Well 3 people made me come into the buisness:

• My father
• Jesus Christ not as a religious leader but by his deeds
• And my elder brother Thambi (see interview nr. 7)

My father worked as a herbal doctor and for the poorest he worked for free.

After my MA I got employed by world vision (big international NGO). But I was not content, because I only implemented what the organization commended. People should own development projects. They must decide what happens. Than I learned PRA and found as as the correct tool for participation.

So that´s why I went for a new NGO

Regarding the progress we made I think a NGO has 5 phases:

Preparative stage, organizing stage, experimental, extension, fading out

PAD is in between extension and fading out phase. Within maximal 5 years ISLAND Trust will take over everything. (ISLAND is child NGO of PAD, fully working by locals, which is founded in order to overtake PAD´s work)

PAD is totally from bottom (in technical term grassroots-orientated).

All work took a lot longer than expected, because we do nothing without Community Participation and as PAD-members are mainly not from the place we face sometimes non cooperation. But anyhow what we do is more sustainable.

The local groups will go on: LG, VDC...

Some dynamics make that not everybody is keen on social ideas, some follow their own agendas. But I believe, peoples organization will and can take over.

That´s so different to my previous organization.

Where did Lukas meet Rajen?

Rajen is the boss of the organization I work with for 9 months.