STEP deals with poor women and children too, which is really unfortunate since I just wrote about the Institute for Women and Child Development, meaning that I've already used up my righteous wrath-driven creativity. STEP is a development organization, which apparently means (counter-sensically to my ear) that they try to build up local community organizations to deal with local problems. This is what all our organizations do, but STEP is the only one that stated it clearly enough for me to get it. It also takes a more national approach by using advocacy to ensure that these grassroots groups can work without being harassed by the government or 'vested interests'. For instance STEP pursues criminal action in cases where Dalits, especially community activists, have been molested, assaulted, or even killed. In the pursuit of developing local organizations STEP holds a large training camp to prepare women to participate in elections to the Panchayat Raj (local governmental positions).

Step currently works in 58 villages of Andhra Pradesh, having grown in recent years from a one-district pony to a four-district show. To fund their work they have asked for 6,18,000 Rs. ($13,000) in the next year.

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