Dear Viewers,
Greetings to you all in the name of Kottar Social Service Society (KSSS).
While welcoming you all to this website, I would like to take you back to our origin and subsequent developments.
As it is said in the introduction, late Fr. James Thombour laid the seed for KSSS in the year 1963. The visionary and the founder Fr. James Thombour came to the diocese of Kottar as a missionary. He saw the struggle and suffering of the marginalized. The poor were not able to get proper education due to their low income. So he planned to kindle the consciousness of the people on the importance of organizing themselves into groups and forming a society. There he started the Society in the name of the diocese and incorporated the social work with pastoral ministry.
Keeping the vision and the mission of the founder in mind, our former Directors, including the present Bishop Most Rev. Dr. Peter Remigius and the staff continued the development work in the diocese of Kottar in Kanyakumari district. By their untiring hard work they brought up the organization to the present status and to the level of gaining the attention of the world community.
Realizing the development needs of the people in the nineties, we made a landmark decision in the history of KSSS to form different Units. Since our main target areas are coastal and rural, we categorized the stake-holders as fishermen, farmers, Dalits and women. For the welfare of the fishermen, we formed two units viz. the Coastal Peace and Development (CPD) and Inland Fishermen Organization (IFO). For the development of the rural people, dalits and the agricultural sector, we established the Rural Motivation Programme (RMP) and the Dalit Development Programme (DDP). We established the fifth Unit called “KAIKAL” for the upliftment of widows and destitute women.
Establishment of the Units have enabled us to understand better the grass root level development problems as also facilitated us to create awareness among the people of their human rights.
In the year 2000, we made a memorable turning point in our strategy to provide focused attention on capacity building of the poor, who lacked skills to take up income generating activities. Simultaneously, in tune with the emerging trend of social work, we re-oriented our style of functioning and strengthened our systems and procedures. However, the Tsunami that devastated the coastal areas during December 2004 gave us a rude shock which forced us to shift our focus towards providing relief and rehabilitation support to the tsunami affected people.
Immediate relief work was carried out throughout the district by organizing voluntary groups. Then we planned for the next phase, that is, rehabilitation. Livelihood options were provided and permanent resettlement planned and actualized for all those who were in the temporary shelters. Various capacity building training programmes were organized to enhance the capacity of the people for their sustainable development.
While I wish to conclude, I would also like to express my heart-felt gratitude to you for your patient reading.
I take this opportunity to emphasize that, social work is an innovative venture towards the holistic development of human beings. The knowledge and idea of development is not something stagnant, rather it is an on-going search.
