About RDT

The Rural Development Trust (RDT), also known as Fundación Vicente Ferrer (FVF) in Spain, has worked in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, for nearly half a century.

Since its inception in 1969, RDT has endeavoured to improve the quality of life of the rural poor, especially among marginalized and underprivileged communities – Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Backward Castes (BC), and Persons with Disabilities (PWDs).

Ananthapuram district in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh has long been a difficult place to live in – a land-locked district with patchy rainfall and an arid landscape. Large farm-holders enjoyed a feudal hold over lower-caste tenant farmers, or even bonded labourers created by indebtedness. It was into this scenario – a society deeply divided along caste, tribe and gender lines and marked by pockets of utter destitution – that Father Vicente Ferrer arrived in 1969.

The main challenge faced by the rural poor in those years was a lack of basic nutrition, and when they did eat, the meal would be of poor quality. So RDT’s early work was in the area of food provision and nutritional awareness. From then onward, RDT engaged more and more with the rural poor of Ananthapuram, Kurnool and Srisailam districts, till its work fell clearly into the 10 sectoral divisions it has today.

Vision

A caring, just and environment-friendly society promoting social harmony and peaceful coexistence and balancing the needs of people and nature.

Today it conducts robust, well-entrenched and widely-appreciated programmes in Education, Women’s Empowerment, Community-Based Rehabilitation, Hospitals, Community Health, Habitat, Ecology, Sports, Culture, and Chenchu Tribal Welfare. Each of these is headed by a Programme Director and is a fully formed and well-staffed set of initiatives into its sector.

Dedicated to holistic development, RDT focuses not only on the primary aspects of community well-being like nutrition, health and hospitals but also the underlying indicators like education, sanitary habitats, cultural development, sports, ecology and the well-being of traditionally marginalised members like girls and persons with disabilities.

Mission

To eradicate extreme poverty and human suffering.

To work towards implementing eco-efficient agriculture that ensures the sustainability of livelihoods and encourages a harmony between human beings and natural resources.

To ensure that educated youth from poor families have diversied job opportunities fetching a decent salary and affording an improved status in society.

To ensure that persons with disabilities have access to equal opportunities and are the main actors in their struggle to lead a life of quality and dignity.

To work towards the empowerment of women by helping improve their socioeconomic status and sensitizing both men and women to deal with such issues as gender discrimination and violence.

To be a value-based professional organization being dynamic and creative in nature, untiring in hard work and motivation, humanistic in approach, strong in its commitment to share the aspirations and struggles of the poor and permanent in time but flexible to adapt to the changing needs of people.

A team of nearly 2,400 people (99% locals) manages the organisation’s work across various sectors covering 3,200 villages, and almost three million people. Since 2012, RDT also has a Resource Mobilisation Office in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

Our Dharma