World Vision India

World Vision India, headquartered in Chennai, is registered as a society under the Societies Registration Act of Tamil Nadu 1975. World Vision International has a certain level of control over World Vision India.[1] The relationship with World Vision International is governed by the Covenant of Partnership, a document that all national members of the World Vision Partnership are required to sign. According to this document World Vision India has to accept policies and decisions established by the International Board and must not establish an office or program outside the home country without the consent of World Vision International and the host nation. Furthermore, with the exception of direct project founding, all funds intended for outside the home country have to be remitted through World Vision International and the financial planning and budget principles adopted by the International Board have to be accepted. This is in addition to an examination of the financial affairs of the World Vision India by Partnership representatives.[2] By signing the Covenant of Partnership World Vision India, like all other national members of the World Vision Partnership, also subscribes to the Core Values, the Mission Statement, and the Statement of Faith of World Vision.The Statement of Faith corresponds to the Statement of Faith put forward by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE)[3] as standard for their evangelical convictions[4] and is also defined in the Declaration of Internationalization (1978) as operational frame of the whole World Vision Partnership and its national offices.[5]

World Vision India
Founded1962
FounderRobert Pierce
TypeNon-governmental Evangelical organization
FocusWell being of all people, especially children.
Area served
97 countries
MethodTransformational Development through emergency relief, community development and policy and advocacy
Websiteworldvision.in www.wvi.org

History

India as a country with a Hindu majority was already very early in the focus of World Vision which was founded in 1950 in the United States as a service organisation to support missionaries[6]:27 and is described by the anthropologist David Stoll as a child of the cold war.[7]:282–289 For example, incorporated the founder of World Vision Bob Pierce, a fierce anticommunist, scenes from India into the anticommunist movie 'The Red Plague', produced by World Vision in 1957 for founding and propaganda purposes.[6]:92–103 The scenes depicts allegedly "false" religions showing e.g. self-mutilating Hindu priests and makes the claim that Hindus, Buddhists and adherents of other religions could easily be converted into communists whereas only true Christianity is strong enough to resist communism.[6]:98/99 Thus, so the message of this movie and other similar movies produced by World Vision at that time, evangelism is necessary among Hindus and other non-Christian people to counter communism.[6]:96 Evangelism is according to an article published 2004 by the political weekly Tehelka still one of the main focus of World Vision India[8]

As an organization World Vision started an office in Calcutta in 1962 which was one of the first offices outside the United States. In 1975 World Vision India was registered as a society in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

Financing

In India, sponsorships provide the majority of resources for programmes implemented by World Vision. Donors and sponsors from 18 countries including over 10,000 Indians sponsor close to 200,000 children in 107 programmes around India. World Vision programmes also access resources from the Government of India as well as other countries such as U.S., Canada, UK, Japan, Finland and Ireland to mention a few.

Child sponsorships

World Vision India's child sponsorship programmes help needy children get access to clean drinking water, sanitation, education, skills for future livelihood, nutrition, health care and participate in an age-appropriate in development processes. The sponsorship amount per month is Rs. 800 (in India). It is different from a donation and anybody interested to be part of this sponsorship process can be involved.

Area Development Programs

Area Development Programmes (ADPs) are integrated development programme that help communities by assisting the children, families and the community block as a whole achieve the basic standards of the four ‘well-beings’, physical, intellectual, socio-economic and moral well-being. Each World Vision ADP touches the lives of 20,000 to 1,00,000 people. There are 162 ADPs spread over 25 states around the country, working in over 5000 communities.

World Vision India is involved in Programme on parenting[9] and Model Anganwadi Centre.[10]

Initiatives

Disaster relief

World Vision has been involved in every major disaster in India since storm surge from the 1977 Andhra Pradesh cyclone affected Machilipatnam. The Bhopal Gas Tragedy (1984), the Orissa Super Cyclone (1999) and the Gujarat Earthquake (2001) were among its major relief interventions. The recent Tsunami (2004) spread out the World Vision's India Tsunami Relief Team all over the coastal regions of the peninsula[11][12] and the J&K Earthquake (2005) drew a team to the Himalayas[13]

Child education

Child education is one of the main initiatives of World Vision. World Vision's child sponsorship programmes aim to help families meet the education needs of their children through sponsorship. World Vision's Child Education projects ensure that every child is given the right to education, especially between the age group of 6 to 14 years. During the 2011 Union Budget the organisation campaigned to help ensure that there was an increase in the current budget allocation of 4% for children education and development in the country.[14][15][16]

Children's health

Children's Health is one of the main issues that World Vision helps tackle in the country. Its Child Health Now campaign that focuses on reducing preventable deaths of children under five.[17][18] Child Health Now was launched in Orissa due to high maternal and infant mortality rates[19]

Criticism

In 2007 a tribal spiritual Hindu monk Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, who spent four decades in of tribal welfare, accused World Vision chief of Orissa India, Radhakanta Nayak, also a former civil servant and Rajya Sabha member from Congress, for the violence and attack to eliminate him.[20] The swami also said that World Vision was pumping money into India for religious conversion and also during 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, which is hidden from public discourse. He also said that World Vision was one of the top donors to NGOs in India and World Vision India was one of the top recipient of funds for Christian missionary activity in India in an interview.[21] N in 2008 he was gunned down along with four disciples at kanyashram (Girls school) at Tumudibandh Ashram, about 100 km from Phulbani, the district headquarters of Kandhmal district on Hindu festive day of Janmashtami by a group of 30–40 armed men, and VHP alleged that the plot to kill was hatched in presence of Radhakanta Nayak, who claimed that charges were false.[22]

References
  1. KPMG: WORLD VISION INTERNATIONAL AND CONSOLIDATED AFFILIATES. Consolidated Financial Statements Archived 19 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  2. Appendix D, "A Covenant of Partnership" in Greame Irvine: "Best Things in the Worst Times: An Insiders View of World Vision" BookPartners, Inc. (1996) ISBN 1-885221-37-1
  5. A Declaration of Internationalization (1978) Appendix D in J.R.Hamilton: "An Historical Study of Bob Pierce and World Vision's Development of the Evangelical Social Action Film" Dissertation, University of Southern California, 1980,
  6. Hamilton, John Robert (1980). An Historical Study of Bob Pierce and World Vision's Development of the Evangelical Social Action Film (Dissertation). University of Southern California.
  7. Stoll, David (1990). "The Development of World Vision". Is Latin America Turning Protestant? The Politics of Evangelical Growth. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-07645-1.
  8. VK Shashikumar '"Preparing for the harvest ..."' Tehelka, Vol 1, Issue 1, 7 February 2004 Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine
  9. "World Vision India: World Vision India:". Retrieved 23 September 2014.
  10. "World Vision India: World Vision India:". Retrieved 23 September 2014.
  11. "World Vision provides food to India tsunami victims". ReliefWeb. Retrieved 23 September 2014.
  12. "World Vision Named Top Tsunami Aid Provider in Indonesia and India". Christian Today. Retrieved 23 September 2014.
  14. "World Vision India, Children, Union Budget 2011, Health, Education, Nutrition". Retrieved 23 September 2014.
  15. Anjela Taneja. "Right to Education India". Retrieved 23 September 2014.
  16. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 23 March 2012. Retrieved 26 April 2011.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  17. "The Campaign". World Vision – Child Health Now. Archived from the original on 11 April 2011. Retrieved 11 May 2018.
  18. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 10 May 2011. Retrieved 26 April 2011.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  19. "World Vision India: World Vision India:". Retrieved 23 September 2014.
  20. "The Pioneer". Retrieved 23 September 2014.
  22. "Net closes in on Cong MP for Orissa swami's murder". Retrieved 23 September 2014.
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