Our Crowdfunding Groups
We are Projects with Underserved Communities: Team India! We are a team of seven engineering and social work students at UT Austin, working to design and build a multipurpose community center in a rural village called Siripudi in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. With this project, we hope to expand the opportunities available to the people of Siripudi and improve their quality of life. Thank you so much to everyone who supported us last semester and helped us raise over $20,000! We are so close to reaching our end goal of $25,000 and we would be so grateful to have your continuing support this semester.
Siripudi is located in the Guntur district in Andhra Pradesh, and it’s very limited in healthcare, food supply, infrastructure, and educational opportunities. There are around 150 families living in the village, and many are socioeconomically ostracized and cannot find continuous employment, let alone regular living wages. In addition, many people in the community are illiterate, and school sessions have only recently begun for young boys in the evenings.
For health check-ups and treatments, there is no common health facility nearby, so villagers are forced to travel up to 40 kilometers to visit a nurse or doctor in a nearby town. The government has allowed nurses to visit the village, but the conditions in villagers’ houses are inadequate for medical treatment.
Siripudi is also located along the coast and is regularly affected by severe weather, lacking the stable architecture needed to protect the villagers from such destructive cyclones. During particularly rough times, villagers from Siripudi are forced to travel to nearby villages and towns to seek shelter.
A home in Siripudi in 2019. (Photo from CASA)
We have partnered with the Church's Auxiliary for Social Action, or CASA, in order to help the people of Siripudi. CASA has been working to promote education, gender equality, and sustainable livelihoods across India for over 70 years. With programs in around 15 states in India, it strives to mobilize people to tackle the issues plaguing their communities such as food insecurity, disease outbreaks, child labor, limited educational opportunities, and resource-based conflict. We are very excited to work with CASA on this project!
CASA volunteers help combat food insecurity. (Photo from CASA)
CASA helps provide educational opportunities for young boys and girls. (Photo from CASA)
The project:
In the summer of 2020, our team will travel to Siripudi to build a multipurpose community center with the help of CASA! This structure will be used for community gatherings, rituals, medical treatments, and evening classes for school children. The space will be available for all villagers to use as needed, and when cyclones hit the coast, it will serve as a storm shelter for the villagers.
Construction site of PUC Team India 2017.
WE NEED YOUR HELP!
We have committed to raising at least $17,000 to design and construct this community center for the people of Siripudi. All of the money from our fundraising efforts goes directly towards project implementation, such as materials, contractors, and maintenance. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support our project. Any amount helps make this project a reality, and your donation can change the lives of many in Siripudi. Please donate today!
*All contributions through our HornRaiser page are considered charitable donations to UT Austin, and are tax deductible. The Tax ID number for UT Austin is 74-6000203.
The Schedule Caste, one of the most historically disadvantaged groups in India, makes up 21.13% of the Siripudi population.
This community center will directly benefit 58 families living in Siripudi.
Added together, our team of 7 students and our technical advisor will travel for a total of 368 hours to Siripudi and back.
One of the largest Banyan trees in the world is 550 years old, located in Andhra Pradesh. It was in the 1989 Guinness Book of World Records!
We will be working on a plot of land of approximately 5,000 square feet.
