Seethanam Foundation

Seethanam Foundation has chosen Ambalapattu, a village in the lower Cauvery delta region in Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu to be its primary place of operation through 2030.

Seethanam believes by transforming one village to environmental and economic self sufficiency, we can show the art of the possible and create a growth model that can be replicated in numerous villages around the world.

Why Ambalapattu?

Ambalapattu (pronounced as AAHM-BUL-AAH-PUT-UU; "BUL" should be pronounced as in Bulgaria and "PUT" as in golf putting) is a mid-sized village of about 7.5 square kilometers in area with 2,000 families and a population of about 10,000 people whose primary occupation is agriculture. Over the last five decades, the village has dealt with depleting ground water levels year-over-year due to reduced river water supply and inadequate water management. In the same period, the village has also lost a significant portion of its green cover due to a variety of reasons including Cyclone Gaja in 2018. Patronage of public school education has fallen through the cracks. In the last two decades, the student population in public schools has dropped by 85%. The village has moved away from 100% organic farming in 1950's to 100% dependent on fertilizers, pesticides, and heavy machinery. These changes have increasingly made the land less potent, the village population deprived of healthy and nutritious food, and farmers economically broke. The environmental degradation combined with changes in diet and lifestyle has led to a range of health issues. More significant of them is, many children are not physically growing to their full potential.

Over the next decade, Seethanam Foundation intends to transition Ambalapattu village to self sufficiency by

• Increasing green cover by 2X
• Making it water surplus
• Transitioning to 100% organic farming along with proper value addition and direct access to market
• Creating an active and healthy lifestyle and environment for all age groups
• Making all 8 public schools a center of excellence for education

Our vision is to create villages that are green, water and food surplus; whose population is happy, healthy, educated, and gainfully employed.

We intend to accomplish this vision through a series of outcome based projects that positively impacts environment, food production, health, education, and employment.