"Serving the poor is Serving God"
60000+
People Benefited across 100+ communities
350+
Permanent Houses were build
2000+
Rural Children provided with Supplementary Education
4500+
Families benefited with Safe Drinking Water Facility through 20+ Borewells
Association of Relief Volunteers (ARV) is a non-profit humanitarian organization established in 2001. ARV envisions a just and inclusive society where every person can live with dignity, equality, and opportunity.Guided by the principle “Serving the poor is serving God,” ARV works with most vulnerable, discriminated and marginalized communities. ARV promotes sustainable solutions to poverty, inequality, and social exclusion.ARV brings together community action, partnerships, volunteers, and development expertise to create lasting social impact. ARV’s key programmes focus on safe housing, clean drinking water, food security, education, sustainable livelihoods, disaster preparedness and building communities’ resilience to climate change and disaster. Over the years, its programmes have benefited nearly 60,000 people across more than 100 communities.
Origin of Association of Relief Volunteers
ARV was founded by Ravi Kumar Tantepudi, inspired by his experience in relief and rehabilitation activities among the super cyclone-affected communities during May 1990 in coastal delta region of Krishna River in Andhra Pradesh. The super cyclone with windspeeds of 230 km/h devastated 125 villages and submerged them, killing nearly 1,000 people and making 3.00 million people homeless, killed 100,000 cattle and destroyed standing crops in 435,000 acres; more than 150,000 people were evacuated to relief camps. The total damage to crops and property was estimated at over $600 million (1990 USD). The cyclone was described as the worst disaster in southern India since the 1977 tidal wave. Sea water contaminated fresh drinking wells, prompting warnings about outbreaks of Cholera and Typhoid as many people were drinking and cooking with water from the drains which was causing stomach disorders. With over two decades of development experience, he has worked in housing, livelihoods, food security, disaster response, and community empowerment. Born in coastal Krishna delta-plains, Ravi Kumar’s family are survivors of these cyclones/storms, tidal-wave, floods during the last 50 years. He saw relief and rehabilitation of victims of natural disasters as his natural responsibility for him as a survivor himself. His professional journey includes work with Churches Auxiliary for Social Action, Habitat for Humanity India, and Foodfirst Information Action Network International (FIAN) provided him good experience in development work.
Our Stakeholders : ARV works in geographical areas where indigenous communities like Scheduled Castes (who face caste discrimination), Adivasis (who are forest-dwelling communities evicted from forest since 1880s), Most Backward Castes (whose traditional occupations like
pottery, leather crafts, handloom weaving, inland fishing, traditional
indigenous medicines etc.,,), vulnerable women& children, religious
minorities, migrants, LGBTQs.
Our Areas of Work : Andhra Pradesh and Telangana State where ARV is working are considered as developed states among the 29 states with high Gross State Domestic Product and per capita income, literacy rates and officially declared poverty rates of 14.96% and 5.77% respectively. But, as per government civil supplies department which provides subsidised/free foodgrains to below poverty families, 53.93% families in Telangana State and 63.79% of families in Andhra Pradesh are registered for receiving subsidised/free foodgrains under “below poverty line” category. This wide gap in the data/information of government departments challenges the poverty information. Hence, ARV works in remote villages which are affected
by natural disasters like storms/cyclones, floods and drought where majority of population are Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. These remote villages are located far from the state capital and district administrative headquarters and government welfare schemes don’t reach the poorest of the poor.
Housing: India faces an urban housing shortage; projections warn shortage up to 70 million units by 2030 due to rapid urbanization. Good housing is dream for the poorest of the poor belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, widows/single women. 350+ permanent houses were built, providing safe shelter to more than 1,750 people, including widows and disaster-affected familiesin Andhra Pradesh State and in Telangana State. 83 cyclone-resilient homes constructed following Cyclone HudHudwith model rehabilitation concept for entire tribal village in Visakhapatnam District with basic infrastructure for tribal families with partnership of Habitat for Humanity- India, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and HSBC.
Education: Children belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes face unfair competition and challenges in education like caste-based discrimination, poverty which affects their learning abilities; while learning gap between Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes boys and boys of other dominant castes is around 25%, the gap among girls is nearly 40% and school dropout rate is high among Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes children. Hence, ARV provided Supplementary Education to 2,000+ rural children belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in 12 centres run in 12 villages of Andhra Pradesh State and Telangana States. 2,000 School Dropouts were helped to continue their education through scholarships and school supplies.
