Founder - Chairman


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Integrated Rural Development Program
Social Education
"So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every man a traitor who having been educated at their expenses, pays not the least heed to them."  – Swami Vivekananda

The foundation of AWARE works on two main concepts Awakening & Welfare. AWARE strongly believed that development is sustainable only through creating awareness hence it started its work first with Social education.


AWARE’s activities here address basic issues based on equality of mankind, universal brotherhood and sociological and ecological displacement of certain section of people in the present set-up in the face of economic and technological growth.

Hence, AWARE’s efforts are as follows:
  • More production for human existence their 
  • Even distribution for co-existence and social justice
  • Social upliftment of the depressed classes by psychological placement of the oppressed in mainstream of development
AWARE concentrated its work in remotest tribal villages, among tribals, then with Harijans and women from all communities.  "Unity, Courage and Patience" became its slogans.  Let all weaker sections unite, discover courage and march forward for sustainable, people based development.  We need patience to reach goal else it leads for violence and bloodshed.

“If the village perishes India will perish too.  It will be no more India.”  “To serve our villages is to establish Swaraj.  Everything else is but an idle dream.” – Mahatma Gandhi.

AWARE starts its work with last one as it believes that the depressed classes still lack moral courage and tone to fall in the main stream of development and fight against unimaginable exploitations.

Poor must know why they are poor; what kept them poor; what are the impediments to cross over the poverty and who are the people obstructing their up scaling. They should also develop knowledge, courage and unity to fight against such impediments. Therefore, social education and motivation are important and primary steps for rural development.

Empowerment of people

The preparatory operation of creating developmental urge and locating causes for backwardness was done through micro-analytical survey of villages, giving special emphasis to people rather than to schemes. It initially started at the grass root level and it took one complete year for study, research and locating problems and finding out probable solutions.

AWARE’s activities focused upon the poorest of the poor, the most oppressed, exploited people - the Tribal’s.  These people have been physically remote from the urban settlements and have entirely different cultural pattern, which makes them a unique part of the Indian population. The abject poverty and the dismal living conditions of the Tribal have appalled Dr. Madhavan; he was equally troubled by their own indifference and apathy to their own living conditions. The Tribals never seemed to question the system that was subverting their rights and even destroying their culture.

“Some unscrupulous persons by taking advantage of the simplicity and honesty of the tribal people were exploiting them and thus denying them the constitutional right of equal opportunity for development.  The tribals themselves should rise and unite to fight their exploitation and join hands with government in its endeavor to improve their conditions.”
-Mr.-Indira Gandhi.

It was important to retrieve Tribals from their demeaning and dehumanising living conditions. They needed to be freed from the shackles of ignorance which over the centuries had lulled them into apathy and fatalism.

In the first regular visit of into tribal villages Dr.Madhavan was not accepted and then he used various methods to reach people’s heart. It was regular motivational talks..questions after questions by him to the villagers/tribals. Why you are poor? Why you suffer?  Why you do not get funds? Why you fear?  What happened to your lands? Series of questions and debates in village meetings and people started discussing. They started searching for answer. 

Then Dr.Madhavan introduced educational components. Knowledge is power. AWARE relies on awareness as its key objective and methodology. To awaken them, education is the medium but with these weaker sections, education does not mean merely a classroom education. It encompasses of information, education, discussions, group meetings Gramasabhas, Mahasabhas, radio talks, audio-visual exposure etc, on all relevant topics such as various forms of oppression, exploitation, injustice, besides topics like agriculture, animal husbandry, marketing, community health etc.

AWARE disseminates information regarding development infrastructure, privileges and rights guaranteed to the tribals, the Harijans and other minority groups, besides modern methods of agriculture and other economic development knowledge.

"AWARE is not a service organization; AWARE is not a charitable organization; AWARE is not a reform organization nor extremist organization.  AWARE works for the empowerment of people, for structural change and for the destabilization of unjust society"  - Report of UN ITAR.

For the first time through AWARE, these Tribal youth realized their own strength and are developing a sense of freedom (freedom from ignorance, fear and passivity) solely intended for them. The Tribal youth are messengers of the progress in their community to which they return as Extension Workers. These trained rural volunteers successfully eliminated many superstitions and helped to stop the habit of alcoholism among the poor.

So far, about 50,000 people are trained. These motivational training camps are the most unique and significant achievement of AWARE. They have made education and knowledge meaningful and functional to groups of people, who have lost centuries of time and hundreds of milestones of development in the society, as we understand it.

Organizations of people

Next AWARE gave attention of building up of Organizations of Poor/Tribal. Every village has a Village Association (VA). Every Village has Mahila Mandali (MM) – a women’s pressure group, a Youth Association (YA), Bala Sangham (BS) Children group.

After motivational and educational activities people realized they needed their own organization. Hence, they formed need-based organizations of people. Unity, Courage and Patience became the slogans in every village.

After three years apex organization formed themselves like Cluster Development Service Society, (CDSS) - a group of ten VAs forms into a CDSS and five CDSS forms into an Area Development Service Society (ADSS). Thus, solidarity developed and led for political negotiation with other communities. People discovered that education is empowerment.

Now mobilization of people on common problem or issues, started through Maha Sabhas. When Tribals started organizing themselves and moving fast in achieving their objectives, the Harijans were awakened.  From 1979, Harijans also began to participate fully in all development programs of AWARE.

"A unique method of organizing the people that AWARE has adopted is that of Mahasabha or great gathering.  People from various villages attend these Mahasabhas by thousands.  They walk up to 40-50 kilometers, in order to reach it.  Great gatherings further solidarity and courage.  They help build up relationships and provide opportunity for knowing each other’s problems.  Mahasabhas are conducted on several issues, like untouchability, bonded labour, abuse of women, government programs, corruption and so on.  Then there are so called Great Mahasabhas or great gatherings.  These are periodical conferences uniting as many as 200,000 people or more around such issues as wage increase, landless poor, women and so forth.  Such gatherings give tremendous strength to the poor"
– NGDO of Developing Countries And South Smiles…. By Sjef Theunis.

The Mahasabhas were conducted in the main villages and from hundreds the numerical strength of Mahasabha increased to thousands. Dr.Madhavan used to address such Mahasabhas 5 to 6 in a day. People used to come from hundred kilometers walking with their food and water to attend the Mahasabha.

All Mahasabhas are conducted at the centre of the village. Tribal as well as Harijans leaders address in such a gathering with  a most powerful speech; they question the discrimination; the unequal land possession; school admission; fertilizer distribution; bank loans and drinking water problems etc.

AWARE’s movement spread like wildfire in the districts of Mahbubnagar and Khammam (Andhra Pradesh). Its influence spread into neighboring districts like Nalagonda Warangal & Medak. It became easy for AWARE to establish village associations & CDSS cluster after cluster, the motivational part was done by the people themselves , success stories spread like a wild fire , peaceful demonstrations were held in front of the banks, B.D.O office, Tehsildar office, education & agriculture offices.