Welcome to the Frequently Asked Questions page. Please select a question from the list to find out more about the ant:

Please select a question... What is the ant? Why does it have a strange name like "The Ant"? What is the objective of the ant? Where is the Head Office of the ant? Who started the ant? Where does the ant get its resources from? Who all are working with the ant? Some of the members of the ant are from faraway places. Why? What are the ant’s present activities in the villages of Bongaigaon? Why did the ant choose to work in Rowmary? How long will the ant stay in Bongaiagon? What are the present activities of the ant as a support and training organisation in the northeast? What kind of salaries and perks do the members of the organisation get? Do the Trustees draw any benefits from the organisation? What is the staff turnover of the ant ? How are work related decisions made in the ant ? Is the work of the ant reviewed or evaluated? Can the ant receive funds from foreign donors?                 Show All Questions & Answers

1. What is the ant? the ant is registered as a charitable trust under the Religious And Public Charitable Trusts Act in Bongaigaon, Assam.. It is a voluntary agency (also called a non-governmental organisation or NGO) working towards rural development without prejudice to caste, creed, religion, gender or tribe.

2. Why does it have a strange name like the ant? Do you know that an ant can carry upto 50 times its weight? The ants are also well known for their hard work, ceaseless activity, resourcefulness and their ability to work together. Besides, they are known never to give up. Well! That should explain why we are inspired by the ants. Hence we commit ourselves to work hard like ants and work together with people. We also call ourselves the action northeast trust.

3. What is the objective of the ant? the ant is committed towards bringing about sustainable rural development in villages of the North East with the core values of ahimsa, truth, honesty, humility, trust and love. Dreaming of a world where there is peace, love, respect and dignity for all, at present, the ant is working at two levels: at one level- directly in some villages of Chirang district in the Bodo Territorial Administered Districts area of Assam, India and on the other as a support and networking organisation to different development agents in the North East region.

4. Where is the Head Office of the ant? the ant is registered in Bongaigaon, Assam and presently has only one office that is at B.O.C. Gate in Bongaigaon. However there is a field centre called the Udandgshri Dera or the freedom camp, which is situated in a village of Rowmari Gaon of Panchayat in Chirang District.

5. Who started the ant?  A two-year-old organisation, the ant was founded by three development workers. They are also the founding Trustees of the organisation: Rabindranath Upadhyay, a known Sarvodaya worker who has since 1962, worked in Nalbari district of Assam for rural upliftment through Khadi and Village industries. He has vast experience and is associated with a number of organisations at the regional and national levels. Jennifer Liang has a masters in social work from TISS and has specialized in social research methods. She has worked directly on health and women’s issues in Assam and has been helping a number of NGOs in the northeast. She used to be the northeast representative of Ashoka Innovators for the Public until recently. She has founded and is on the board of a number of other organisations. He is also the Managing Trustee of the organisation. Sunil Kaul is a public health activist who worked as a medical doctor in the army for some years, and then left his job to work for primary health care in rural areas of Rajasthan and Assam . He has been working in community health especially with respect to malaria and T.B.

6. Where does the ant get its resources from? Monetarily, at the moment, it has four sources of funds. Grants – Although for the first two and half years we never resorted to grants and preferred to earn our way through, we have resorted to receiving project based grants from various funding agencies. We have been proud recipients of grants from National Foundation for India ( New Delhi), Sir Ratan Tata Trust (Mumbai), Aid to Artisans (USA), Ford Foundation ( New Delhi), Indo-Global Social Services Society – NER (Guwahati), Indians for Collective Action (USA), ActionAid – NER (Guwahati) and British High Commission ( New Delhi ). Consultancies – We are proud to declare that we have earned a substantial amount of our funds for the foundation years of the ant..   This has been through trainings and consultancies to other development organisations. Self- dependency begins at home!  Publications- We have been able to publish booklets, manuals and diaries and earn funds from these for our work.  Personal Contributions- We are fortunate to have kind friends, relatives who believe in our endeavours and kindly contribute for the work. the ant is also registered under section 80G of the Income Tax Act for 50% concession for donors on Income Tax. Loans – We have occasionally resorted to loans from RGVN for our weaving project, but have never defaulted in repayments We have also utilised resources in the form of voluntary service from people believing in us. Getting free translations done, resource people for trainings at minimal cost, designers for our weaving project are few of the types of invaluable help we have received.

7. Who all are working with the ant? We have a few volunteers working with us. Rani, Binapani, Amrit, Deepali and Krishna have now moved to the weavers organisation called Aagor Daagra Afad and take on a number of responsibilities for this weaver controlled organisation. Nandini, the secretary of the weavers organisation is also on the payrolls to learn management issues- -. Nirila, our first employed staff from the field area now looks after the cash disbursal and maintains accounts. Saito, a lawyer by training lookas after the Entitlemenst issues with Dinonath, a cub reporter for a Bodo daily. Rajesh ha trained in Rural Marketing and helps the women and youth groups in developing entrepreneurial and income generating ideas. Rajib, a mechanical engineer by training is passionate about silk rearing and is helping local people raise it scientifically. Mohan and Swarna (one her way out to start her own organisation) run the women’s Jagruti group programme although Roshmi who has run her own Jagruti group very successfully, is fast developing into an effective field worker for the programme. Raju looks after the youth and women’s group in one of our clusters, but being a theatre enthusiast who has trained in Theatre of The Opressed,  is likely to raise our communication team. Papori, a fresh postgraduate from Tata Institute of Social Sciences has joined us to coordinate and assist the women related programmes. Pushpa and Mithinga, the President and Secretary of the Milonees, our health workers now get paid for ten days a month in order to meet, encourage and supervise the other health workers once a month. Smitha, who launched the ant  into the weaving arena with her spectacular textile designs is back with us and has roped in her beau, Pradeep who is also a fashion designer. Both run the Design Support Centre as our consultants. Jennifer coordinates the ant’s work and also handles most of the paper work while Sunil takes charge of fund raising, and networking besides giving inputs on the health programme.

8. Some of the members of the ant are from faraway places. Why? It is true that some of the members are not from the local area. Rural areas need attention of development workers and agencies. Thus, believing that many areas of the northeast could do with help in development, these members have committed to work here.

9. What are the ant’s present activities in the villages of Chirang? Currently we work in around 50 hamlets .  They can be distinguished into different activities. ·    Village Health Programme: almost all villages in our area cannot access government  health care facilities easily. Thus women volunteers who were selected by the village have been trained to handle about 30 medicines for common ailments.  Working as village pharmacists, they provide high quality, low-cost generic medicines at no-profit no-loss basis and benefit the poor, especially women and children. ·    Weaving Programme: realizing that the women in the area are skilled weavers the ant  has tried to market this skill so that it can be an income generation opportunity for women. Moreover, it hopes to create a distinct and positive Bodo identity through the products of weaving. ·    Jagruti Groups:  believing in the concept of self-help groups, these are women groups engaged in small savings and investments. The objective is to lead the women towards consciousness or Jagruti. ·    Udangshri Dera:  or freedom camp is centre that welcomes some of the poorest girls and women who have worked in other people’s houses for monthly emoluments of about three hundred rupees ($30) plus food and shelter. In 3-4 months time 10-12 girls are expected to earn and save about 3000 rupees that each of them can take back home to start a small livelihood project or return their back crushing loan or feed into our weaving programme. Other skills are also taught besides learning and writing for those who are illiterate so that they can face the world later. ·   Entitlements work:  the ant has recently started collecting information on the implementation of government schemes that affect the poorest and is trying to generate awareness about the rules that govern the schemes. It hopes to stem the corruption in order to help those below the poverty line to get their legitimate entitlements.       Home stays, visits to villages, mobilizing people, understanding their context, baseline survey etc are some of the strategies used to initiate the above activities.

10. Why did the ant choose to work in Rowmary? During their initial reconnaissance for a needy place to work, some people staying in the Kokrjahar – Bongaigaon border had brought some of the founding trustees to the areas north of Bongaigaon that were badly affected by lack of communications and river erosion. Since they were convinced that the area deserved the attention of a development agency and that they could contribute from their experience, they set up the ant in October 2000. By March 2001, villages of Rowmary G.P. were chosen as the stepping stone for future developmental activities. Presently our activities extend to other G.Ps as well, like Malepara, Birhangaon, Amguri and upto Koila Moila and Amteka on the Bhutan border . Moreover, Bongaigaon town being close to the work area was chosen as the base, as it helps us to communicate with other agencies and facilitates our activities at the second level.

11. How long will the ant stay in Bongaiagon? We believe in sustainable development. Thus all are activities are designed in such a manner that the community members can start running them on their own very early. Once that is achieved the ant will work on other issues or in other villages of the region, but even then will act as a support organisation.

12. What are the present activities of the ant as a support and training organisation in the northeast? the ant plays a supportive role for organistions and volunteers in other parts of the northeast who are engaged in development activities. It has worked chiefly in four ways: ·    Trainings: We have been invited as a resource group for training NGO personnel on issues in which we have expertise - community health programmes; malaria prevention and management; essential drugs; social analysis; NGO management; research methods, self help groups etc.  ·    Consultations & Evaluations: From helping organisations in conceptualising a plan of action to assistance in evaluation of projects of other organisations has been a role that the ant uses to guide agencies towards community - driven sustainable development. ·     Publications: In order to reach out to a larger audience, the ant published material that has been translated into various languages, some of it by others. Some of these include: A to Z of Malaria ....and more, Your Medicine Box, Health Diary cum Manual and a Three Phase manual to train village health workers. ·    Fellowships: the ant helps committed young people interested in working with village communities by helping them get a small fellowship to enable them to continue their work mainly through a commitment from the Bhoruka Charitable Trust, Jaipur.

13. What kind of salaries and perks do the members of the organisation get? Apart from the consultants, the highest TOTAL emoluments of the ant in August 2005 amount to Rs 5440/- (about $125) a month while the lowest salary after the first three months of probation is Rs 1860/- a month. Staff not having a house locally are given some subsidy on rent for hiring accommodation on a shared basis. Everyone is expected to buy his or her own cycle and cycling may range anywhere between 10 to 50 kilometres a day. Everyone is expected to travel by second class train accommodation unless there are no tickets available. Travel by the fastest economy mode is resorted to when specific external funding is available for the same. At least sixty percent of any money earned from consultancy by any paid staff of the ant is expected to be deposited into the ant. All staff are allowed to take 4 days off in a month at their convenience and only need to inform others about their absence in advance .