civilians and as human beings. ARDAR is taking up and will take up such activities by setting up an aim, clear objectives and strategies by focussing its work at micro and macro levels.

India has a long coastline, which is an opportunity for the people of the country for sustainable food security. But the man made exploitative systems are affecting the food security for the whole humanity and in particular to the large number of people that depend on the sea. Thus effective development interventions are required to reorganise the lives of and livelihood opportunities for the people who are traditionally dependant on the sea for livelihood. ARDAR is working on the issues of encroachment of fishing trawlers in to the 8 km. zone of traditional fishing communities, pollution of seawaters, shrimp farming and shrimp seed collection in the Northern coastal districts. It is working for empowering the communities to take up the issues that help for its livelihood. Natural disasters are also affecting the livelihood of the communities in the coastal areas. Thus this also occupies an important area of work of ARDAR. The organisation is providing capacities to mitigate and prepare for the situation and to take up pre, during and post disaster planning and actions. Each community is trained and encouraged to prepare a contingency plan as a part of their preparatory work. The plan helps them to take up the preparatory and rehabilitation work with confidence. The preparations help in saving humans as well as assets.

There are about 400 groups in Indian society that are officially designated as Scheduled Tribes. Most of these groups are still in the same lower strata without any socio economic changes or improvement in their livelihood assurance. In Andhra, Jathapu is one such tribe, which lives in Vizianagaram and Srikakulam districts bordering Orissa state, that fall under this category of no development and no beneficial contacts with the outside world. This is the reason for ARDAR to take up the work with this tribe. Further some of these tribal villages are in remote pockets and become inaccessible as neither people from Govt. nor from NGO's are willing to go there and work for the needy. ARDAR is working on the land alienation and policy advocacy issues of the tribals. The industrial and mining activities are affecting the food security of the tribal population. Thus the efforts are focused on the entitlement of rights of the tribal population to their native lands and protection of the natural resources. ARDAR is also working on this issue on the macro level through networking with like-minded NGOs in A.P.

Recently ARDAR is also working in the slums of Visakhapatnam and on issues of street children, HIV/AIDS and trafficking of girl children and women.