INTRODUCTION

Rural Community Development Society (RCDS) started its journey of socio-economic development in 1995 by group of young professionals at small town, Mandi Faizabad (65Km distant from provincial capital of Punjab province). The energetic youth group under the leadership of Mr. Muhammad Murtaza envisioned an organization that would help the ultra-poor households to organize and work collectively for breaking the poverty cycle through provision of opportunities in Human & Institutional Development, Social Mobilization, Livelihood & Employment and Physical Infrastructure Development. The collective efforts started with the support of local philanthropists and initial years spent by the founding members for carrying out planning activities including community organization, area profiling, multi-dimensional social & development study and poverty assessment.

After the successful profiling of the target area, clear goals and objectives were defined by the team and RCDS registered itself as a Society under Societies Registration Act, 1860 on July 3, 1998 at district Nankana Sahib of Punjab province with mandate of working at provincial level in Punjab, Pakistan. Organizational policies and procedures documented and management approached different donor organization working for the socio-economic development of marginalized communities. During initial 2-3 years, RCDS established its partnership with South Asia Partnership-Pakistan and Trust for Voluntary Organization for social mobilization, rights awareness, establishment of non-formal schools, community based social enterprises and micro-loans for livelihood opportunities. However, the journey of transformational development started in 2001 after partnership with Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF). Multi-dimensional area development program including poverty scorecard, microfinance, community physical infrastructure, education and health projects initiated in district Sheikhupura and Nankana Sahib. This longstanding institutional partnership with PPAF opens up the new horizons for RCDS management and its outreach increased to 20 districts of Punjab province at the moment. So far, 765,666 households have benefitted from the services of RCDS through multi-sectoral development programs.