History:

At the stroke of midnight, on 15th August 1947 India awoke to freedom. The cost of this freedom was phenomenal in terms of loss of property and human lives as a consequence of partition. The exchange of population across borders forced millions to live in alien surroundings and subhuman conditions. In this hour of agony and grief, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru requested his very close friend Bishop Picket to initiate a response from the Indian Protestant and Orthodox Churches. On his request, the National Council of Churches in India responded by forming the ‘NCC Relief Committee’ for immediate response as an expression of solidarity with the suffering masses, which later went on to become the Church’s Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA).

Growth:

Though its initial focus was on providing immediate relief to victims of natural and human induced calamities, CASA has today grown into a premier relief and development organization in the country, acting as the outreach arm of 24 Protestant and Orthodox Churches in India.  Its primary objective today is to strengthen the poor and promote the efforts of marginalized groups of the Indian society towards sustainable development leading to social justice and self-sufficiency.  While CASA is a Christian organisation constituted and supported by the Churches, its outlook is secular and it is mandated by the Indian Protestant and Orthodox Churches to carry out its interventions irrespective of religious, ethnic, caste or political considerations.

CASA’s registered headquarters are located in New Delhi.  It has established 3 Zonal offices in the cities of Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, and 18 sector offices in Guwahati, Imphal, Aizawl, Dimapur, Shillong, Bhubaneshwar, Ranchi, Lucknow, Indore, Raipur, Udaipur, Nagapattinam, Cuddalore,  Tirunelveli, Allapuzha, Bapatla, Port Blair and Shimla, from where its country-wide programmes are implemented and monitored by more than 500 employees. We are operational in more than 4,500 villages with around 350 partner organisations.  Financial support for our programmes comes mainly from Indian Churches, Government Agencies, and from multilateral grants made by ecumenical resource channelling agencies from overseas, corporate bodies and socially-concerned individuals who make a small but significant financial contribution to the programmes of CASA.