Organisation

The Glenn Family Foundation has established a separate Trust in Kalimpong to facilitate its operations in India. The programme is managed by the eight trustees, who include local Lepcha people and two representatives from the Cluny Sisters. The Trust proposes initiatives to the GFF and provides fully-costed budgets for each project. The Foundation then authorises funding through GFF International.

The Kalimpong Model Village Development Project currently has 13 permanent employees. These include office staff, area coordinators and village representatives who are ably led by an efficient and dynamic Project Manager, Mr Saom Namchu. The structure of the Programme is very carefully thought-out. It devolves a good deal of control to each village in the belief that this empowers the village people, encouraging them to gain valuable experience and knowledge by being directly involved in activities for the betterment of their own communities.

Each of the 15 villages which joins the programme sets up its own Village Management system. This is headed by a Central Committee of 14 to 18 members which is further subdivided into subcommittees and self-help groups. The role of the central committee is to facilitate village development, provide support for self-help groups, and later, as the committee becomes more experienced, to extend support to neighbouring villages which may want to join the Model Village Programme. Thus, knowledge is shared from within the community’s own experience and not “top-down” from outsiders.

 

The GFF’s goal is to increase the Model Village Programme by adding five new villages each year. There are now 15 in the Programme and, with more villages eager to become involved, the main challenge for the Trust and its staff is to maintain quality in the new work done and keep up the level of support it gives those already in the programme, as well as continuing to expand its operations. Physical limitations such as distance, poor road networks and flooding during the monsoon all impact on the work of the Trust - but these never dent the staff members' enthusiasm for the tasks at hand.