By 1979, a District level NYK was established at Kurnool town of Andhra Pradesh State. The Coordinator of Kurnool Nehru Yuvak Kendra (Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports. Govt. of India), Sri Mohammad Khaleelulla became interested and excited about big hearts of Velugodu teenagers. He specifically traveled to Velugodu village to interact with un-registered Youth Literacy Association, Velugodu and advised its members to register an association, under Societies Registration Act, so that the group can access not only NYK programmes but also other government schemes. By that time the membership of the association rose from 15 to 82. LAV took the advice of NYK Coordinator and registered Youth Literacy Association as “Star Youth Association” (SYA), on 10 November 1980, with the Registrar of Societies, Kurnool. Ignited by five-teenagers and fuelled by NYK, the “Star Youth Association” thus came into being as a secular, non-profit, nongovernmental, Voluntary Organization (VO) constituted with educated and dedicated youth, who then went on to excel both in studies as well as social work. At present, SYA is managed by a team of professionally trained development workers who chose to remain with the community and area where they originally came from. Initially, SYA was engaged in community orientated works like literacy, awareness, skill development, tree plantations, leadership training, work camps, youth conference etc. After a decade of youthful activities, SYA took a major leap and transformed itself from a mere elitist youth group to a group with larger agenda of rural development. At present, SYA is working across the states of Andhra Pradesh (Nandyala and Kurnool Districts) , Orissa (Bolangir, Sonepur, Nuapada and Kalahandi Districts) and Karnataka (Hagaribommanahalli Taluka, Vijanagara District).

We at SYA are a non-profit & non-governmental organisation focused on Water Management by the Gram Panchayats and providing Technical and Management Support to project stakeholders for implementation of Andhra Pradesh Integrated Irrigation and Agriculture Transformation Project (APIIATP) in 40 project villages, “Andhra Pradesh Irrigation and Livelihood Improvement (APILIP) in 13 project villages, Atal Bhujal Yojana (ABHY) in 18 project villages as well as Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) – Rural Drinking Water Supply Schemes in 645 villages of AP & 2,016 villages of Odisha. The main project deliverables are Training & Capacity Building Initiatives, IEC Activities, Regular Community Meetings, Strengthening Water Users Associations (WUAs), Preparation and Updation of Tank Development Plans, Micro Irrigation Plans, Livelihoods Plans, Gram Panchayath level Participatory Water Security Plans, Village Action Plans and District Action Plans related the Rural Drinking Water Supply Schemes.

Our projects focused on water users particularly 25,000 farmers, 18.17 lakhs households/ community members, local CBOs particularly children, youth and women groups across the states of Andhra Pradesh (Nandyala and Kurnool Districts) , Orissa (Bolangir, Sonepur, Nuapada and Kalahandi Districts) and Karnataka (Hagaribommanahalli Taluka, Vijanagara District). The total project villages are 2,732.