Rait and the progress of its Vika Centre

It’s now a couple of months that I landed in India. First experience in this incredible big Country.

My new home for the following months is Rait, a village situated 20 km from Dharamshala, in Himachal Pradesh, the State in the North West of India. The town is quite nice, every morning I can have my breakfast facing an incredible view of the Himalayan Chain, I can hike along the river as well as walk throw the wheat fields. Such an amazing location!

There is just one thing I like more of the extraordinary nature in Rait: its inhabitants.

It’s incredible how the people living here are very kind and always ready to help for everything you need. Of course we are the foreigners coming from all over the world, so they are curious about us, about our families, our countries, but it’s not only that. If you need any help, no matter what, you will find at least one person ready to help or support you to come out of the situation.

One example that shows the kindness of these people happened just few days ago:

During the last weeks the team focused its energy on the VIKAS Center. VIKAS has a double meaning : in Hindi means development and, at the same time, is the acronym of  Village Knowledge, Awareness and Sustainable development. The idea is to create a proper space built for the needs of the community. The Center may include several facilities, which the more important will be : an Education and career Resource Centre, an ecoStore / REstore, a public health assistance and First Aid centre…  In the long term, we hope that these ViKAS Dev Centres can be run directly by the village communities where we work in, as a platform to help them address some of the social, environmental, educational and health issues in their own communities.

Following this mission we are renovating the space, where the VIKAS Center will soon open. Our priority was repairing the wall of the center with the plaster and then coloring it. The people were really interested in and often they stopped by. They love talk with us, have a chai together, try to help in every way they can. The community or at least the neighbourhood  were really helpful. They borrowed us brushes and spatula and they also gave us suggestions. Even the children wanted to give their contribution on helping us to paint. It was really funny!

Painting with the children from Rait

What can I say…within the village I feel at home: smiles and good friends! I’m very glad to be part of this supporting community, always ready to welcome the new entries. 

Thank you to our helpers!

Andrea Putelli - Italy

Centre Administration Coordinator and Forestry Project Manager in Rait

Starting of a Girls Club in a new village

After the success of the Girls Club and Young Women’s Association in Naddi, our volunteer-interns team is working to start up a new group in Himachal Pradesh village cluster at Maitee. As new international volunteer-intern members, the team-members had moved to Maiti at the end of January, 2013 to help initiate this new project.

Naina, Kate Davis - Canada (Girls Club and YWA Project Manager),
Laboo, and Auréline - France (Micro-finance Project Manager)

Since moving to Maitee they (Kate, working with our affiliate YWI; and Aureline working with affiliate MicroEmpowerED program) have spent the majority of their time getting to know the women and children of the community. Kate, from Canada remarks, "At first I was intimidated by this task because there had been no previous interaction with these families and I was worried as to how they would receive my presence in their village. After some casual visits and many cups of chai my worries soon vanished as I got to know the families.  Up to this point, there are about 15 girls with whom I regularly interact that range from the age of 6 to 20. The older girls have been helping me learn some Hindi and I help them with their English when I can. The children are so happy to teach me about their way of life in Maiti and they especially enjoy it when I dress in the traditional Indian Salwar Kameez outfit, saying that I look “Oh! SO nice!”." 

            In the next few weeks, the team has started to organise a room in the near vicinity of the intern house to use it as a common get together and activity room. A classroom at the local elementary school is also being put into use..The team-members will not only be able to assist the teachers with the English curriculum during school hours, but they will also teach skills for community based waste management and good case practices for environmental conservation amongst the children. In the afternoon they would be able to conduct Girls Club and After School Program activities. For Girls Club, the girls have shown a great interest in learning various life skills and practicing English. They have also said that they would like to do arts and crafts as well as organized team sports on the field out back.  We look forward to seeing these activities come to fruition in the next few weeks, and, support Aureline (from France) towards initiating a Young Women Association and Self Help Group there!

Main Road Square of Maitee village
A lline of houses of the marginalized and poor lie (beyond visual sight) behind the trees on the right extreme

SWASH Village - Rural waste management project

The arrival of 6 plastic disposal bins to Naddi village would not make anyone else as happy as it has made this Australian 21-year-old volunteer-intern. Arrived on July, Morgan Mcintosh did not previously had any ideas on which project to establish in the village. And although she herself confesses not being “a very environmental person at all”, waste management problems in the area caught her attention immediately.

The local hills are green seen from afar during the monsoon season, but in a closer examination, other colors can be found: those of plastic bottles, plastic wrappers and other trash. “I thought it was a big shame that there were no facilities in the place, particularly in such a beautiful setting, so I thought I’d do something”.
People in the area would normally throw their trash away, or accumulate it in bins only to burn it all later, posing serious health and environmental issues. And after her first days of deliberation, she found out that the problem was also a concern for the community in Naddi.

The kids used magazine paper to make beautiful and environmental-friendly necklaces

“I was really happy that the community brought up the issue themselves before I even got the chance through Young Woman’s Association and the Girls Club. On my first couple of days, when I was giving it a thought, they showed their interest too” So she started doing some research and move into getting solutions for the problem by preparing a SWASH project (Sanitation of Water, Air and Soil for Healthy village).

Waste can be managed
Education was the first step: she organized several activities for the kids and grown-ups to know how to separate the different items. Reuse activities also took place in her project, like the necklaces made in Girls Club out of magazine sheets.

Morgan after her lecture on recycling at the school

But the main goal was to get several bins so that all these ideas got into practice. After decorating them, the Fun club was also devoted to trash picking and then sorting of it, an activity at which the kids showed all they had learned in the past weeks.

There are now recycling bins in the Sheynnee community, as well as the Government School in Naddi, where Morgan also gave a well-attended lecture about waste management to the kids.

A basic lesson about resources and their potential unavailability in the future was also part of her project.
As she puts it, “there’s lots of areas that need to be covered: recycling is important, but also sustainability, resources… more environmental issues will be covered when more interns arrive”.