Resources - CORD
Centre for Orientation, Research and Documentation
SXSSS started a new wing called “Centre for Orientation, Research and Documentation (CORD)” in 1989, something which we felt was very essential to our work. It actively and systematically documents the day-to-day happenings that affects the life of people and society and disseminate important information for public use. The CORD also acts as an important nodal point among other NGOs, government offices, besides coordination between field areas. Located close to the educational institutions of Ahmedabad, the CORD encompasses the library, a training hall, a conference room, a seminar hall, and a few discussion halls for programme groups to meet.
During the last three or four years, looking at the work and challenges that we face today, especially in the context of urban work we realized the need and importance of reorienting our CORD to move towards our vision and mission more relevantly. We felt the need we need to build on our experiences and conceptualize the experiences in knowledge forms. It is a felt need that we need to develop an additional value for greater impact on policy level through raising greater awareness on issues related to the poor and their marginalization. We also feel the need to enhance our field activities by providing appropriate programme support system and capacity building within the organization. It is important that we create an appropriate information management system through which we could disseminate our learning and knowledge to others. Hence, following are the five major components of the CORD...
- Documentation of the activities done at field level: By documenting our daily activities, we give voice to our experiences at the grass root level. Documents are prepared in such a way that they help the facilitators to reflect on their work. Moreover, our tri-monthly magazine “Perspective” gives expressions to the strength, problems, questions and experiences of people at grassroots and provides perspective to bring changes in the society.
- Orientation and Training: A number of trainings and orientations are organized by the facilitators. The CORD provides necessary material support as well as prepares modules and relevant material for the trainings and orientation.
- Need based support to functional teams: Whenever the functional teams requires any support like preparing letters, leaflets, applications etc, the CORD team provides its support to prepare it.
- Research: CORD prepares the forms and other material necessary to carry out any research. It enters the data of the survey carried out by the functional teams. Analysis is also carried out by CORD. Paper cuttings are kept regularly according to general and specific topics.
- Advocacy and Networking: Website, tri-monthly magazine Perspective, publications on relevant issues have proved very important for advocacy. CORD team also networks with a number of stakeholders to carry out its tasks. Media advocacy is an important role of CORD.
CORD plays a crucial role in gathering, processing and disseminating information. It maintains a library and a variety of records and files on a host of subjects. It documents daily news items thematically. We receive newspapers in English and Gujarati, 750 magazines, journals and newsletters. Our library contains more than 8000 books, 388 video cassettes, 330 audio cassettes, approximately 100 sets of slides and a host of posters and charts.
In case you are looking for specific publications or audio-visual material and want to check if it is available in our Library, visit us or write to us with your subject of interest.
You can view some of the publications by CORD on this page.