Add: 172/3 Rashbihari Avenue

Kolkata - 700 029
West Bengal
Tel: 91-33-24663693
Email:
Website:
Contact: Mrs Surama Ghosh
Purpose: Art and culture, Child welfare, Disadvantaged communities, Education, Food and Nutrition, Health, Training, Women's issues
Aim/Objective/Mission: Beginning its work in 1969 among women living in the slums of Manoharpukur and Gracha in South Calcutta, CSP came early to the problems of fighting urban poverty and the praxis of non-governmental action. Calcutta was a strife-torn city, politically violent across social and sectarian divides. It was the time of the engineering recession, which near decimated West Bengal and Calcutta’s industry. The Bangladesh war in 1971 brought the social fabric close to cracking, especially in the Municipalities of Greater Calcutta. Many of Calcutta’s present problems first appeared and became entrenched during this time. In a climate of confrontation, CSP began as an experiment in social co-operation; a group of middle class women in the slums to try and solve basic problems of nutrition. CSP started as a Red Cross milk distribution centre. The encounter with poor mother and unborn child was CSP’s moment of truth. A woman and her children are the precarious lifeline of a poor family, which usually means a low earning or unemployed or truant father; the women and the children having to labour to stop the family from falling apart. It unfolded a pattern oh human need, recognising and responding to which has been the core of CSP’s experience.