About Us – CORDRaleigh

CORD Raleigh is a chapter of Chinmaya Organization for Rural Development (CORD) USA; a non-profit organization that aims to help communities create a sustainable program to aid in their holistic welfare for the past 30 years.

This year CORD Raleigh raised over $7500 for COVID-19 relief efforts. The funds were distributed to Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina and Inter-Faith Food Shuttle and we are happy that our efforts helped provide food and hope to families, children, and seniors right here in our community during their greatest time of need.

CORD initially began as a healthcare center in Himachal Pradesh. But as the voices of the villagers were heard and their challenges extended beyond healthcare, CORD expanded its programs to focus on improving health, education, support for the disabled, social justice, local self-governance, decreasing poverty, environmental issues, and much more. CORD’s strength and success is a result of empowering the local community, who are direct beneficiaries of its services. Villagers are taught modern techniques of agriculture and crop intensification, sanitation and hygiene, rainwater harvesting, micro-credit and income generation activities, financial literacy as well as health improvement and awareness.

CORD now extends beyond Himachal Pradesh and now exists in Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Sri Lanka. CORD’s programs and services have impacted over 700 villages in four provinces of India and it has touched the lives of over 550,000 beneficiaries through this integrated transformation. CORD has also become an inspirational training center for individuals and institutions across India and from other parts of the world to train and successfully guide their programs. Its micro financing programs within the villages of rural India have been nationally recognized and become a successful model for urban banks to train their employees in these villages.