SPEED Trust's programmes are dedicated to the people living in the slum areas, regardless of their colour, caste, sex or religion. The main objectives are:

• To support socially and economically deprived women, particularly widowed and deserted mothers, by giving them the means to become self-confident and responsible.
• To help children to improve their level of education and their technical skills.
• To encourage people to develop income-generating activities in order to become independent and self-sustainable.

SPEED Trust concentrates its efforts in one of the biggest slum areas of Chennai: Gandhi Nagar - Sathyavani Muthu Nagar.

This slum is located in the heart of the city, opposite the Central Railways station. 800 metres in length, 200 meters wide, it is bordered in the North by the sewage-river Kuvam. It shelters about 2,600 families, i.e. 15,000 people, among which half are below 18 years old.

Most of the male slum-dwellers work as casual laborers, cycle-rickshaw pullers or auto-rickshaw drivers. Many women, most of them isolated, are employed as house-maids for monthly wages below Rs.600. All of them live in a state of deep poverty, leading them to put their children to work as soon as possible.

SPEED Trust also intervenes in other slum areas in Chennai: Chintadripet, Sathya Nagar, Nochikuppam and Pallavan Nagar.

• The Micro-Credit Programme enables the slums inhabitants to create or develop small-scale activities, so as to increase their income and improve their living standard.
• The Vocational Training Programme main objective is to increase the technical skill level of women and school drop-out youngsters, through training courses in various fields: tailoring, embroidery, screen-printing, auto-rickshaw driving, etc.
• The Producers Groups gather people who, after their completion of a vocational training, are manufacturing items for external orders (knitted hats, wire baskets, etc).
• The Educational Programme provides educational facilities for slum children such as an evening tuition center, extra-curricular activities and summer camps.
• The Family Follow-Up & Sponsorship Programme aims at pulling families out of the deepest poverty, most of them destitute or widowed women with their children.
• The latest project of the organization, the Home for Isolated Mothers provides a shelter and a training centre to the poorest women and their children, with priority to the families rendered homeless by the 26th December 2004 tsunami. SPEED Trust ships its product through Baladarshan a licensed Fair Trade Federation member.

Text and Image Courtesy of SPEED Trust