Strengthening Sustainable Livelihoods involves working with rural communities and individuals to enhance the various productive activities in which they are engaged. This includes a variety of both traditional land-based activities and alternative IGAs. Land-based livelihoods are used to bind communities together and maximize the productivity of available natural resources in a sustainable manner, while involving women in alternative IGAs contributes directly to the process of women’s empowerment.

By Building People’s Capabilities, particularly in terms of working with them to create systems through which their health and education status can be enhanced and to transform social relations, particularly gender relations, Seva Mandir seeks to support the evolution of a society that is better placed to work for its own development. In addition to directly supporting communities in providing services, this work includes creating spaces where dialogue around critical issues can take place and through which all sections of society can take ownership of their own development process, be it social, cultural, economic or political.

The work on Empowering Village Institutions centres on creating autonomous spaces at the village level through which villagers are able to participate in an empowering process that enables them to exercise responsible leadership and collective action in order to address their development challenges. The village institutions supported and strengthened by Seva Mandir are founded on the principles of participatory democracy, transparency, justice, and accountability, and serve to promote an alternative paradigm of development. Through these village institutions, communities are able to take ownership of, and thus manage, their own development process.