Integrated Development Organization
Rural Community Development Society (RCDS) was Established in 1995, registered in 1998 under societies registration act 1860 as the integrated development organization. RCDS has been working for the development & empowerment of the neglected and disadvantaged community for the last 27 years with programs of Micro Enterprises Development, Health & Education, Physical Infrastructure Development, Human Resource Development, formal, non-formal & technical Education, Capacity Building, Farmer Enterprise Development Program, Political Education Program, Emergency Response & Recovery Rehabilitation Program and Social Mobilization programs.
RCDS is a community development entity that implements different programs at grassroots level aimed at attaining sustainable development.
The organization has 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 24 districts of Punjab province at the moment. So far, 904,119 households have benefited from the services of RCDS through multi-sectoral development programs.
From 1998 till 2015 all the social development projects, programs, Micro Credit Program and Interest Free Loan Program was being run from the Platform but due to the law passed by the government of the Pakistan and regulations of the State Bank of Pakistan 2015 Rural Community Development Programs (RCDP), a sister organization of RCDS was got registered under Section 42 of the Companies Ordinance 1984.
Later on RCDP got the license as Non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC). In this context, in November, 2015, through a master agreement, between RCDS and RCDP, the whole, RCDS Micro Finance Program Portfolio was shifted to RCDP. Hence in April 01, 2016, the entire Micro Finance operations went under RCDP and all the social development programs/project went under the umbrella of RCDS.
As RCDP (A sister concern) has emerged from RCDS, has geographical presence in 36 districts having 250 office and 2,500 Human Resource. RCDS-RCDP has signed a volunteer agreement to use its offices, asset and HR for cost efficiency.
