Our Story

Who we are

Assisi Aid Projects is a small international development organisation with a strong focus on women – empowering women to create positive change in their own lives, in their children’s lives, and in their communities.  

A woman with silver hair sits looking at a camera. She is wearing a teal saree with flours and line print. There is a large group of women sitting behind her.
Participants in our Single Women's project in India are empowered to make positive changes in their lives. Image credit: IDT 2019.

How we work

Fundamental to Assisi Aid Projects’ development approach is ‘working in partnership’ - with and through local partner NGOs.

The Assisi Aid Projects strategy is to strengthen people’s capacity to establish, operate and manage their own development initiatives. To achieve this, the strategy is to work with local partners to deliver projects, utilising local expertise in the communities.

Assisi Aid Projects currently works with communities in southern India, proudly partnering with Integrated Development Trust (IDT), and in Nepal, proudly partnering with the Federation of Business and Professional Women Nepal (BPW Nepal). Our current projects are:

Empowering Every Woman - India 

Empowering Every Girl - India

Advancing Women in Agro Business Enterprise - Nepal

Our history

Since 1985, Assisi Aid Projects has worked to empower women across the Indo-Pacific.

Assisi Aid Projects’ origins trace back to 1974, when Sister Stella, a nun from India, visited Victoria, Australia to learn dairy farming techniques to help fight food insecurity. After spending seven months on dairy farms throughout regional Victoria, she returned to India by ship, paying for her trip by managing 33 Australian cattle in the ship’s hull. At the end of this journey, she retained six of the cows, and the Assisi Farm and Training Centre was established in 1975. Sharing the skills she learnt from her time in Australia with her community in Tamil Nadu, Sister Stella was able to train women in dairy farming.

This act transformed the lives of countless women - one cow could produce enough milk to sustain an entire family.

A group of chidren stand in front of palm trees looking towards the camera. Nearby, a nun (Sister Stella) and two other adults stand closer to the camera. One of the adults is digging a well. Sister Stella sits on a chair and holds an infant in her arms.
Left: Early days of the Assisi Farm & Training Centre; right: Sister Stella looking after a child. Image credit: IDT / Assisi Aid Projects.  

In 1985, Assisi Aid Projects was formed, aiming to provide support to the centre. The longstanding, mutual partnership empowered thousands of women and their families across Tamil Nadu to transform their livelihoods through income-generation and skills training.

Assisi Aid Projects provided direct support to the communities in Tamil Nadu impacted by the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Individuals from communities across regional Victoria raised funds to support the purchase of new fishing boats, replacing those destroyed by the natural disaster.

An image of 9 people - 8 men and 1 woman, a nun. 7 of the men stand in front of a fishing boat with "Shepparton" written on it. The other man, Tom Dumaresq, stands next to the nun, and shakes the hand of one of the group members. A group of 8 people sit in a fishing boat on dry land. The boat has "Wangaratta" written on it.
Left: Board member Tom Dumaresq meets with communities in Tamil Nadu following tsunami recovery efforts; Right: a group of local fishermen with a boat named after fundraisers from Wangaratta. Image credit: IDT / Assisi Aid Projects.

Assisi Aid Projects today

Over time, those needs of the communities changed, and in 2015-16 Assisi Aid Projects established a partnership with our current partner in India, Integrated Development Trust. While Assisi Aid Projects is no longer in partnership with the centre, its current work with IDT enables the organisation to maintain its core objectives, while evolving to continue to meet the needs of the communities in which we work.

Over the years, Assisi Aid Projects has partnered with organisations in Cambodia, India, Maldives, Solomon Island and Timor Leste.

In 2022, Assisi Aid Projects embarked on an exciting new partnership with Business and Professional Women Nepal, and in 2023 with Dreamdelion Indonesia. 

A group of four women stand posing with postcards to the camera. There is a woman and a man also in the background. The four women in the foreground are smiling and are wearing brightly coloured sarees.
Today, Assisi Aid Projects supports women to lead their development opportunities and as agents for change in their communities. Image credit: IDT 2018-19.

Assisi Aid Projects is a proud signatory to the Australian Council for International Development  (ACFID) Code of Conduct and is an accredited DFAT Australian NGO Cooperation Programpartner. 

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