Agricultural Development & Training Society

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ADATS (Kannada: ಆದತ್ಸ್) is a secular Non Government Organisation (NGO) working with 38,615 small and poor peasant families in 913 villages of the 5 taluks of Chickballapur District, Karnataka, in South India for the past 31 years, since 14 December 1977.

ADATS has a socio-political presence in 31% of the villages that comprise Chickballapur District. Overall population coverage is 18% in these 5 taluks. Within villages with functioning Coolie Sangha Units, coverage is very high at 33% of the population.

ADATS and the Coolie Sangha share a vision of a community of unified poor, across parochial caste lines and the gender divide; with increased survival capacity in a rapidly changing political economy; with food security ensured by sustainable resource-use practices and economic development; where individuality and person status are established and protected by the community; where Coolie children, especially the girl child, have a childhood, education and a secure future of their choice; where organised Coolies have a political presence and are a power to contend with, without becoming a passive vote bank.

[edit] Main activities

ADATS is a comprehensive rural development organisation working in the fields of Community Organisation, Adult Literacy, Children's Education, Community & Referral Health, support to issues and struggles with Legal Aid & Aid Distress, Dry Land Development, Agriculture, alternate Credit, Women's Programmes, etc. We also work on issues of gender justice, secularism and democratisation.

All these are efforts to empower the Coolie caste-class in village society, and build an authentic people's organisation, the Coolie Sangha, at the Village, Cluster and Taluk levels.