Sakthi – Vidiyal

Jim Jesudoss, Founder and Executive Director of Sakthi-Vidiyal, is a committed Child Rights Practitioner and a Development Professional. He has thirty years of rooted experience in working on concerns of children from very challenging and difficult circumstances. He founded Vidiyal programme in 1996 in Madurai under the aegis of Sakthi. Today Vidiyal provides a range of services to rescue, rehabilitate and reintegrate children from socially marginalized communities and children from difficult circumstances. Sakthi- Vidiyal work is rooted in 8 Madurai slums and 12 rural communities, linked with many Regional and National networks on policy advocacy issues, providing leadership and content for transformative changes especially on the issue of ‘Child Participation’. Jim is a writer, thinker and has directed and staged many plays on a range of child issues. Jim served as the Chairperson of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) Madurai district between June 2012 and November 2018 and dealt with child issues in a judicial capacity entrusted by government of Tamilnadu. He served as a member of the Tamilnadu State Child Policy Drafting committee, nominated by the Tamilnadu State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights. He headed the Forum for Promotion of Child Participation (FPCP) in Tamilnadu and Pudhucherry for two years till August 2012, headed the Campaign Against Child Trafficking (CACT) in Tamilnadu for two terms. Recently he is elected as the Tamilnadu State Convenor of National Action Coordination Group (NACG) for Ending Violence Against Children (EVAC); facilitator in the national process regarding child participation and has been a resource to some significant National, South Asian and International processes.