Our Philosophy

Please read this it is very important

The Vidiyal Trust bases its philosophy on knowledge accrued during Pat Atkinson's 33 visits to India. During the time that she has been there (amounting to over 100 weeks in actual working time), she has met, and worked with some wonderful people, not least the people considered untouchable, as well as many professionals, and has made many lasting friendships. She has also met, and overcome, misuse of funds, fraudulent organisations, and cynical manipulation of goodwill.

From these experiences has come our undertaking to only work with registered, accountable charities and to ensure that projects are monitored and managed from more than one source, to ensure transparency. For example, our new project to build a Boys and Girls Home is under the umbrella of the Registered Indian Charity of which Pat is Settlor, (solely funded by The Vidiyal Trust UK), local trustees and the local Church of South India and Catholic church. There is public awareness, scrutiny of the work and the land registration has been made in the name of the registered charity, with published local knowledge and understanding that in the long term ownership will pass to the local communities. To ensure that accounts produced are transparent a Registered Chartered Accountant, who is part of a large, registered practise, scrutinizes the accounts.

Unfortunately, in poorer countries, there is misuse of donated funds on a wide scale. Anyone can set up an "organisation" and produce accounts (several sets if the project is multi funded - this is common practise), but ownership will be in the hands of individuals, who long term will become very wealthy.

Occasional visits from sponsoring agencies are easily managed; after all it is quite easy to make visitors who come every couple of years "fall in love" with a project. It is what is happening in their absence that counts. At the very least we feel that funding organisations should only work with registered charities (you can check registration on the CAF websites for the country concerned). This ensures that there is some external accountability, and that, if necessary, a formal complaint can be made through the Charities Aid Foundation. If money is given to an "organisation" this could be just a group of relatives and/or friends, there will be no accountability - but much personal gain.

The Vidiyal Trust actively seeks to expose such practises, and Pat is currently working with Indian nationals (many based in the UK), who, like her, abhor this sort of practise, and want to see it stopped.
The people who suffer long term are those that good intention was meant to help.

Unfortunately, until funding agencies work diligently too, bad practise will continue. We have learnt from experience, that to challenge management procedures, lack of registration and so on results in
quite frightening repercussions.

Our philosophy will be to maintain our direct, hands on approach. Pat, or other trustees, will continue to visit the sponsored projects twice every year. We will only work with registered organisations that welcome questioning and scrutiny, and above all, we will ensure, as stewards of donated funds, that they are used in their entirety for the people they were meant to serve.