A brief history of VST

1959

It all began with Dora Scarlett, an Englishwoman who went to India, found herself doing village medical work near Chennai, and then decided to start her own rural clinic in a remote area with few medical facilities.

In partnership with a local farmer and his wife, Dora acquired a piece of land near the market town of Aundipatti, put up a simple mud and tile building and started handing out pills and bandaging ulcers.

It was called Seva Nilayam, meaning Home of Service, and gave free medical care to all. It took off during the 1960s, funded by Oxfam and War on Want and staffed by western volunteers and local young people.

1976

Among the volunteers were Tony Huckle and Bryan Osbon, who started Village Service Trust in 1976, and John Dalton who stayed in India and took over the running of Seva Nilayam’s leprosy centre. This became a separate institution in 1982, named Arogya Agam, or Place of Health.

One of the young local staff was Gunasekaran, who later founded his own project, Vasandham, meaning Springtime, about 40 miles away, deeper into the foothills of the Western Ghats.

1970's-80's

Through the late 70s and 80s VST was mainly concerned with sending funds from supporters to Seva Nilayam and Arogya Agam. Much of the latter was raised by John’s mother, Ruth, who became a trustee and chair of VST until last year.

In 1989 we began to receive funding from the Department for International Development. Our first Dfid programme was community health. Arogya Agam, having largely eradicated leprosy, extended its health work into new areas, particularly mother and child care delivered by recruiting village health workers.

1990s

The work developed to embrace women’s empowerment through the formation of self-help groups. Arogya Agam also pioneered Aids education in Tamil Nadu, a ‘hotspot’ for HIV in India. The community health work was further developed and focused strongly on TB – with funding from the European Commission.

In 1999 VST decided it was ready to step up a gear. It engaged a full time staff member, Angela Russ, and began an integrated health and development project called Network Theni. The programme covered community health, TB control, Aids education, micro-enterprise, women’s rights and efforts to make the panchayat system of local democracy serve the poor. A major feature of the programme was insistence on working principally with Dalits.

Network Theni ran from 2001 to 2006. It was funded by the National Lottery, Dfid, Target TB, Elton John Aids Foundation, and many individuals, groups, and trusts with donations both big and small.

In order to manage Network Theni a steering committee was formed. This later evolved into an organisation in its own right, called Development Action Consortium Trust. DACT is led by a development professional, Jothi Ramalingam, who has worked with VST for many years. VST now has a formal partnership with DACT under which the two organisations are dedicated to working together to undertake health and development activities in India.

Today

Currently VST and DACT are building on the foundations of Network Theni, working now with five of the seven original partners. Federations are being supported and strengthened so that they can become self-reliant and function without outside help. We are working with the government’s primary health centres to try to put in place a first rate self-sustaining TB control programme. In the fight against Aids we are working with those at risk of contracting HIV and with organisations of positive people. And we are developing the political arm of Network Theni, with the aim of making the panchayats, or village councils, a powerful force for development in the villages of Theni district.

We continue to receive funding from the Lottery and Dfid. But our aim is to build our own direct fundraising capabilities in coming years. In this we have the help of Angela’s successor, Ruth Whitbread, who has much experience in this field.