CYSD (Centre for Youth and Social Development) has been working to improve the quality of lives of tribal, rural and urban poor in Odisha, with primary focus on eradicating extreme poverty ensuring social inclusion and participatory action since 1982.
CYSD has carved out coherent and reinforcing strategic actions, such as promoting community food system; strengthening system for realization of entitlements; upholding skilling, reskilling and enterprise promotion; fostering governance mechanism at the community level; and addressing disaster vulnerability; centring around four key impact groups namely, Tribal Communities, Distressed migrants, Disaster vulnerable communities, and the Urban poor.
This apart, the organisation puts emphasis on strengthening community institutions, facilitating grassroots planning and monitoring, capacity development with focus on gender concerns, research and evidence generation, strengthening partnership and collaboration for realization of its change goals.
CYSD reaches to more than 6.65 lakh population covering 1307 villages of 272 GPs in 31 blocks of 10 districts of Odisha (Koraput, Malkangiri, Rayagada, Nabarangpur, Kalahandi, Bolangir, Keonjhar,Mayurbhanj,Puri and Khurda) and West Bengal (West Medinapur, East Medinapur and Jhargram) through its program interventions.