the ant works at two levels:
1. Directly, in the villages of District Chirang (newly formed Bodo Territorial Administered District) of Assam .
2. Indirectly, advocating certain issues and providing training support to NGOs & networks anywhere in the northeast.

Direct Village Work: We have programmes running in 50 villages in five Gaon Panchayats that are within 2 hours cycling distance from Bongaigaon. We are trying to put together demonstrable programmes that could serve as low-cost and sustainable models run by the community.
a. Jagruti Groups: Trying to reach a state of awakening or “Jagruti,”the focus is on training & awareness building of these women’s groups on different issues. Their social position is also strengthened by economic benefits from using their monthly savings for income generation. One of them produces desktop products from the leftover cloth from our weaving programme while another sells tea packed by the handicapped. Yet another buys paddy from its poor group members to cushion them from the low prevailing rates and then sells it at a higher rate in the market and redistributes the profit among them. Others are into pig rearing, poultry, silk rearing. Ninety percent of the members would classify as to people belonging to the poorest sections of the village.
b. Village Pharmacists Programme: Women volunteers selected by the village are trained to handle about 30 medicines for common ailments. Working as barefoot doctors and some as village pharmacists, they sell high quality, low-cost generic medicines that benefit the poor, especially women and children who get to access and afford essential and rational medical care at their doorsteps. The thirty odd health workers who are active have provided services to almost eight thousand patients in 2004-05.
c. Expanding Income Opportunities: Turning available skills and resources of the most resource- poor such as women and the landless into livelihood opportunites, programmes of weaving, banana cultivation, mushroom cultivation etc. have been implemented with modest results. The weaving programme started with poor women of the Bodo tribe in 2002 has steadily expanded and has doubled its sales every fiscal year. It involves more than a hundred women weavers of which more than 80% of who were very poor and debt stricken when they entered the progamme. By August 2005, more than 28 lakhs of sales(since the beginning of the programme 3 years ago) have been made generating wages of more than thirteen lakhs for the rural people! A weaver administered Trust called the Aagor Daagra Afad has already been formed that sells its products under the brand name Aagor. The money and stocks have already been transferred and we hope to transfer complete management to them within a short time.

Enlightenment to Entitlement Programme: At its last annual meeting the members of the ant  voted for starting work on sensitizing people to know and fight for their legitimate entitlements. Given the advantage that the managing trustee had accepted to play advisory role (for the state of Assam) to the Commissioners appointed by the Supreme Court in response to a PIL in 2002, the ant is carrying out surveys on various food and poverty related schemes and reporting back to the Supreme Court to put pressure on the government to improve its performance. It has utilized its association with other credible NGOs in the State to get good grassroots information on the implementation of the Mid Day Meal Scheme, the Public Distribution Scheme (Ration Fair Price shops), the National Old Age Pension Scheme and the Integrated Child Development Scheme. It has also made posters about the new Supreme Court guidelines on the said schemes and conducted awareness workshops which have drawn very good attendance.

Indirect Works: the ant plays a supportive role for organistions in other parts of the northeast who are engaged in development acrivites. It has worked chiefly in four ways:

a. 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.

b. 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.

c. Publications: In order to reach out to a larger audience, the ant has 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 (English, Assamese, Bodo) · Your Medicine Box (easy to refer manual on 27 essential drugs) · Health Diary cum Manual · A Three Phase manual to train village health workers. We are trying to build our own capacity building manual that can be used by other NGOs .

d. Fellowships: the ant helps committed young people interested in working with village communities by giving them or helping them get a small fellowship to enable them to continue their work.                                                                                                                          

e. Design Support: Knowing that almost every woman in the northeast can weave, the ant feels that this skill can be harnessed to increase the incomes of people in the low-monetisation economyprevalent in the northeast. With good design inputs, it is possible to reach out to the burgeoning middle class in the cities of India . Our design support center is meant to help other groups to improve the designs and make them marketable. Until August 2005, it has already helped four other groups and communities and all these have made remarkable progress in marketing their products.

Apart from these, some members of the ant  have been called to play a role in making larger policy changes on issues such as malaria, rational drug policy etc.