Church's Auxiliary for Social Action

Church's Auxiliary for Social Action or CASA (founded in 1947) is a non-religious Indian development organisation based in Chennai and a service wing of the National Council of Churches in India comprising the Orthodox and Protestant Church Societies in India. CASA is a member of ACT Alliance[1]

Church's Auxiliary for Social Action
Charity
IndustryNGO
Founded1947, India
HeadquartersRegistered office: New Delhi
Zonal offices: Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai,
Sector offices: Guwahati, Imphal, Aizawl, Dimapur, Shillong, Bhubaneshwar, Ranchi, Lucknow, Indore, Raipur, Udaipur, Nagapattinam, Cuddalore, Tirunelveli, Alapuzha, Bapatla, Port Blair and Shimla
Key people
Busi Suneel Bhanu (Chairperson), Sushant Agarwal (Director)
Number of employees
500
Website

Mar Aprem Mooken writes,[2]

Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of India at the time of partition, asked the Christian community to assist in the work among the refugees, which the community readily responded through the National Council of Churches in India.

Genesis

The partition of India played a virtual havoc with peoples lives which Jawaharlal Nehru,[3] then Prime Minister of India wanted to address and shared it with J. Waskom Pickett and Marshall Russell Reed who involved the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) to lend a hand in mitigating the suffering of the displaced people for which the NCCI formed an ad hoc Relief Committee. Over the years', the Relief Committee took different names,

  • 1947, Refugee and Famine Relief Committee or Central Relief Committee,[4]
  • 1955, Committee on Relief and Gift Supplies (CORAGS),[5]
  • Christian Agency for Social Action,[6]
  • (present) Church's Auxiliary for Social Action.

Funding

As a development non-religious organisation the activities of CASA are funded through the individuals, the Churches in India, the State, the corporates and a few overseas ecumenical bodies.[3]

List of Directorships[7]

(Period, Name of the Director )

  • 1947-1947 - Dr. E. C. Bhatty
  • 1947-1948 - Dr. E. D. Lucas
  • 1949-1951 - Dr. Donald Ebright
  • 1952-1956 - Dr. Donald Rugh
  • 1956-1957 - Mr. Ranjit Chetsingh
  • 1957-1958 - Rev. Edward Benedict
  • 1958-1961 - Mr. J. S. S. Malelu
  • 1962-1966 - Capt. Alexander Jethro
  • 1966-1971 - Mr. Stephen Mathai
  • 1971-1971 - Mr. Idrak Bhatty
  • 1971-1972 - Mr. H. B. Kadambavanam
  • 1972-1974 - Mr. S. Ponraj
  • 1974-1975 - Mr. T. S. Francis
  • 1975-1977 - Mr. P. C. Joseph
  • 1977-2001 - Maj. J. K. Michael
  • 2001-Present - Dr. Sushant Agrawal

Programmatic interventions

CASA's approach to development could be put in the following way,[8] The Cross Cutting Thematic Areas of CASA’s programmatic interventions are : 1. Humanitarian Aid 2. Development Initiatives to address Structural Poverty 3. Gender Mainstreaming 4. Climate Change 5. Local Capacities for Peace and 'Do No Harm'

gollark: Well, this seems vaguely nonsensical.
gollark: Yes, violent revolution bad.
gollark: It is, unfortunately, hard (for practical and ethical reasons) to really field-test them, but you can do simulations of some things.
gollark: It's reasonable and good to think abstractly about the pros and cons of different social/political/economic systems so we can consider which ones might be better in various ways.
gollark: What are you meant to do, just go "hmm, yes, let's just hope it all works out magically".

References
  1. ACT Alliance Members
  2. Mar Aprem Mooken, From Relief to Development: A Profile of CASA, Jaffe Books, 1979, p.17.
  3. CASA - About us Archived 2015-10-25 at the Wayback Machine
  4. The National Christian Council Review, Volume 97, Wesley Press, 1977, p.139.
  5. H. Dwight Swartzendruber, Forty Years of Service Beyond Our Borders, Masthof Press, Morgantown, 2012.
  6. Harold C. Fey (Edited), A History of the Ecumenical Movement, Volume 2: 1948-1968, Wipf and Stock, Eugene, 2004, p.228.
  7. Somen Das, Mission Redefined' (CASA at 60 - striving towards life in fullness, Appendix C, Leadership of CASA.
  8. CASA, Our Approach to Development Archived 2015-10-25 at the Wayback Machine
Further reading
  • Thomas J. Davis (2013). "Religion in Philanthropic Organizations: Family, Friend, Foe?". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • H. Dwight Swartzendruber (2012). "Forty Years of Service Beyond Our Borders". Masthof Press. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • Somen Das (2008). "Mission Redefined' (CASA at 60 - striving towards life in fullness". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • Damon P. Coppola (2007). "Introduction to International Disaster Management". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • Terry Brown (2006). "Other Voices Other Worlds: The Global Church Speaks Out on Homosexuality". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • Erwin Fahlbusch (1999). "The Encyclopedia of Christianity,". 2. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • Church's Auxiliary for Social Action (1997). "From Despair to Hope: 50 Years of CASA". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • Government of India (1987). "Encyclopaedia of social work in India". 4. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
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