The Timbaktu Collective is a registered voluntary organisation that was initiated in 1990, to work for sustainable development in the drought prone Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh, India.

As of March 2006, the Collective had a team of 63 members and worked in about 112 villages of Chennekothapalli, Roddam and Ramagiri mandals of Anantapur district, serving about 33,000 marginalised people.

The Collective focuses on the landless, small and marginal farmers with special emphasis on women, children, youth and Dalits. These are the people who are most affected by situations like chronic drought, unproductive land, unemployment and poor infrastructural facilities. With local self governance being the underlying theme of our work, we have formed numerous Community Based Organisations (CBOs) of the rural poor, to work in the areas of:

• Regeneration of forests in common lands (Revenue waste lands and Reserve Forests)
• Revitalisation of agricultural lands belonging to small and marginal farmers
• Rejuvenation of traditional water-harvesting structures (tanks, kuntas, wells & other water bodies)
• Developing a relevant banking system with rural women from marginalized families
• Relevant education for the rural deprived children
• Education and organisation of youth and Dalits.
• Awareness building on local self governance (panchayats)
• Awareness building and empowerment of disabled people
• Networking with other voluntary, civil society, community based and mass organisations at district, state and national levels.

The 2005-2006 Annual Report is available here ( 2.1 MB, pdf).

An external review of Timbaktu Collective's work with women and children over the past 12 years was conducted in December 2005. The report produced by the review team is available here (1.3MB, pdf). The annexures referred to in the report are available here (2.3MB, pdf).

The story begins in 1990, when a small group of development activists located themselves in a 32 acre plot of dry, degraded land. They gave it the name Timbaktu (Sarihaddu Rekha in Telugu - where the earth meets the sky). They wanted to find ways to heal and regenerate this ravaged land and create an agro forest habitat.

Slowly over the years not only Timbaktu but also the surrounding hills have greened themselves while insects, birds and animals have reappeared. A small community of volunteers, committed to developmental and ecological regeneration, has settled here.