India Development Group

Jeevika Trust was founded in 1970 under the name ‘India Development Group’, as a non-political, non-religious UK charity.  It is registered with the UK Charities Commission (No. 291167) and under the UK Companies Act (No. 1476225) as ‘India Development Group (UK) Ltd’.

Jeevika is a Hindi word best translated as ‘livelihood’.  For us the term ‘livelihood’ goes beyond just making a living, to embrace all the primary conditions for a viable, dignified and hopeful existence.

In June 2005 we adopted the working name ‘Jeevika Trust’ with the explanatory slogan ‘village livelihood in India’ to better reflect our mission of ‘tackling the roots of poverty… through revitalising rural communities’.  For all practical purposes we are now known as ‘Jeevika Trust’.

To read Diana Schumacher’s Welcome Speech at the launch of our new name on 25 June 2005 please click here.

For many years until 2003 our work was concentrated around the Schumacher Institute for Appropriate Technology and Rural Development (SIAT), a training campus based outside Lucknow which reached only a few neighbouring villages.  As Jeevika Trust has become more committed to extending our horizons across India, to expanding the impact of Schumacher's ideas and of our mission to touch human lives on a more significant scale and to responding to the challenges of globalisation, we have increasingly channelled our support through our principal partner, Schumacher Centre for Development, Delhi.