Tribhuvandas Foundation

Tribhuvandas Foundation is a public Charitable trust working with the AMUL milk cooperatives in and around Kheda district of Gujarat. Its mission is to work for betterment of health in rural communities of Central Gujarat.
The Tribhuvandas Foundation was set up by Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel- the founding Chairman of the Kheda District Milk Producers Cooperative Union, today better known as AMUL. TF as it is commonly known was registered as a public charitable trust in 1975, under the Bombay Public Trust act, 1950.
Tribhuvandas Foundation started activities in 1980, with grants from National Dairy Development Board, AMUL and UNICEF. It later received grants from the Overseas Development Administration, the predecessor to DFID. The initial project plan conceived TF as an Integrated rural development program. It is now a Community health organisation, working mainly on reproductive and child health.
TF covers around 682 villages, working through the village milk cooperatives of AMUL, in 18 talukas in the districts of Anand and Kheda in Gujarat state of India. The population covered would be around 1,600,000 (around sixteen lakhs or one million six hundred thousand). Since 2001 it has launched a rural health insurance scheme, covering around one hundred thousand households.
416 Annual General Body Meetings of village milk cooperatives attended
From March 2009, TF has tied up with Sankara Eyecare Institute's Anand Hospital for eyecare in 7 blocks - to eradicate preventable blindness . From March 9 to mid-Sept 09, the Sankara-TF joint efforts have reached around 1100 people - who have been provided COMPLETELY FREE eye surgeries, mostly for senile cataract. Training inputs have been provided to all village health workers of TF.
TF has also been enlisted to provide training to members of Village Health and Sanitation Committees of Village Gram Panchayats of all the villages of Umreth, Anklav and Anand talukas of Anand District and Balasinor and Virpur talukas of Kheda District during the financial year 08-09. The Gujarat state government has provided grants for this project of around Rs.1100,000 (eleven lakhs or one million one hundred thousand rupees).
Apart from community health, TF also has programs for children, (Balwadi program) and for livelihood enhancement of women (handicrafts). TF also has organised anti tobacco campaigns in its program villages.
The Chairperson of the National Dairy Development Board, Dr.(Ms) Amrita Patel assessed the organisation thus in an international workshop " Tribhuvandas Foundation, which is Asia's largest NGO, works in over 600 villages in the State in the field of maternal and infant care. What is unique about the programme of the Foundation is that it rides on the back of milk. It is the village milk co-operative that appoints a village health worker and pays an honorarium to the village health worker to undertake the work. So it is milk paying for health." [1]
Author: Halse M. Source: In: National Council for International Health [NCIH], Cooperative League of the US, Group Health Association of America. Alternative health delivery systems: can they serve the public interest in Third World settings? Occasional papers. Washington, D.C. NCIH, 1984 Aug. :7-11. Document number 026323.*[2]