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June 4th, 2011

Students belonging to the six schools of Dalhousie gathered together to share notes on the state of pollution and it’s causes in the city. What came out at the end of the reports was a complete picture of Dalhousie’s inadequate measures of waste management. The main causes which were identified were:

1. Growing tourism
2. Lack of responsibility of the Hotel industry
3. Lack of law enforcement
4. lack of proper collection process
5. Bad state of Garbage bins
6. Garbage on the hillsides on the marked ‘Hotspot’ sites which will be difficult to collect.

The students of these Eco-clubs have surveyed the town, faced abusive language and threats from the irate hoteliers and despite their efforts have not been able to convince the culprits to acknowledge the true state of affairs. The suggestions which came out of these presentations were:

1. Make the hoteliers adopt their respective localities for garbage management.
2. Concrete steps to penalize defaulters
3. To make an effort to keep the garbage bins and their surroundings cleaner
4. To ensure regular and more frequent collection and disposal of garbage from the bins.

The members of local Administration were present at this Conference viz, the S.D.M (Dalhousie), the Executive Officer, Municipality and a member of the Pollution Control Board, Chamba. But at the end of the conference it was clearly seen that there were very little results that could be worked out with one meeting and that there is a lot more thinking and corrective action required before we would make a dent on this growing menace. This first meeting was just a beginning and there were no apparent miracles happening….

Now, I am also a great sceptic.. since I have seen the falseness of our governments.. society and people… buuuutttt… I am still not ready to say DIE…. The effort may not be a success… or maybe.. who knows..?? It is worth a try… at least I can say that we are trying.. and not giving up without an effort…

I look up into the dark skies of humanity and wish for the stars……

that we may be able to dent in this impregnable wall of scepticism and hopelessness….

for our own selves…

 Dear friends,

 On the occasion of the ‘UN International Year of the Forests’, we have decided to support the ‘World Environment’ conservation, through our own efforts in Dalhousie. Keeping in mind the nature and purpose of the Eco-clubs formed in each school, we proposed to utilise the energy of youth with the purpose of positive change and have a series of Eco-club conferences, each dealing with a new aspect of environment conservation problems and solutions.

With this primary objective of educating the youth about the nature of pollution problems and to tackle them with practical solutions, the first ‘Eco-clubs school network, Litter survey Conference’ is being conducted on June 4^th 2011. The schedule for the conference is as follows

• Date: June 4^th, 2011

• Venue: Bachat Bhawan, Court Road, Dalhousie

• Time: 10.00 A.M.

  • Opening address and speech by the SDM Dalhousie (In-charge Eco-club Monitoring Committee)

  • Presentation of reports by each school regarding their monitored areas

  • Discussion of problems afflicting each area and their causes

  • Consolidated overview of the findings of the schools.

  • Proposal of solutions and their discussions with E.O. Municipal Committee, Dalhousie

  • Parting notes and Proposals for the next Conference Objectives for the Eco-clubs.

  • Refreshments.

All participant schools are requested to send their ‘Eco-club’ members to the venue, at least 15 minutes before the beginning of the conference (by 9.45 A.M).

TODAY WE STARTED ANOTHER CENTRE AT ‘BATHRI’…..

The new centre is on the highway to Chamba (the district headquarters), in a (upcoming) village called ‘BATHRI’ … and even though these areas seem to be financially better off than the further interior areas… the women are still facing an uphill task to lead a decent life…

An example quoted by a local…. “the girls are married off soon as they reach the legal age of 18 years (if not before), if they are lucky.. the husband would not be a drunkard and treat them right… if not then soon after marriage the men would fall back into their old ways .. and… there would be no money coming back to the house for food or other needs….. within a timespan of few years the girl would end up having a few children.. and by the age of 27 would be the mother of 3-4 children (if she is lucky.. without miscarriages). In a lot of cases, the husband ends up with some or the other serious ailment.. (if not dead), and the wife is left to fend for herself and the children. Without much education or earning capabilities… a lot of women end up making local liqueur (bootleg), to support themselves and their children….”

Our work is like a mere drop in the ocean…. but we will do our bit as long as we can, the happiest feeling is that at the end of each course we bask in the feeling of having managed to give something to our students: the three R’s…… something which will last them a life-time ……

The students and teachers in the new centre at Bathri

Only time will tell how this centre fares…. but, I hope that they will learn not only stitching but also the art of preserving their smiles through their own efforts and not just go through lives like cattle… tied from one post to the other… but as self-dependent, honest and happy people…..

Talai Tailoring school - 2011-12

Come spring, there is an enthusiasm bubbling forth. All our women/girl students and workers alike, are looking forward to beginning their activity. Even before we had officially announced the centres open, there were calls inquiry from the prospective students. We already filled up ten seats of the tailoring schools, but since we usually take in about fifteen for each centre, the teachers made a round of the surrounding villages of the ‘Talai Tailoring school’, to appraise people about the start of a new course… Within an hour or two they already had eighteen on the list… And so it began…

Enthused faces of these young girls reflected their eagerness to learn… which is hard to understand… Most of them having recently completed twelve years of schooling with rote learning and painful exams, have willingly undertaken to do our course…. even though they are aware of our reputation of conducting a tough course with students having to actually learn…. unlike the studies they

Girls coming for the Tailoring school 'Ghera' admission

have done till now…

The other centre near ‘Ghera’ is finishing it’s session, with the final exams being conducted by Isabelle, who went there all the way to make sure that it was conducted properly… Later, she told me that all the students were feeling very sad, since, they realised that the final exams also meant that their course had finally come to an end and they would not be coming there any more….. It was so much fun, while it lasted…..

What makes it worthwhile for the students as well as us, is the spirit of learning.. both within the teacher’s and students coming to the centres. Even though our teachers are young and not very experienced in teaching… they have been very quick to learn and follow the guidelines developed by Isabelle… I am quite sure that there is no institute which can match the curriculum for Tailoring school developed by us in India… Someday, I hope we might be able to train the teachers of the government tailoring schools too, to inspire and teach the way our own teachers have….

This time we had a 100% result with ALL the girls who sat for the exams passed successfully (where our passing requirements are getting a score of above 50%)

REMARKABLE… considering that one of the girls had not even passed 4th class and she had scraped the bottom of the class with 57%… aaaand she was so scared that we had to actually send someone to beg her mother to come and take her certificate..

The winner of “Golden Needle Award’ has not only topped the class in all scores, but simultaneously done the ‘Teacher training course’ and will be taking up the job from the next session… apart from the fact that she was inspired by all the people in the ‘Trust’ to stand for the village panchayat elections…. and this was the woman who was generally considered as good for nothing by village standards because she could not take care of the average village household jobs (due to some injury)…

I am SO PROUD of our girls… and ISABELLE.. who is the proof that a teacher needs to have motivation to be good. It does not matter if one does not even speak the language fluently….

The tailoring centres are run keeping in mind the working pattern of women in villages where they have to spend time between collecting wood.. managing household, cattle, children drunk men, and working in the fields… So it was decided right in the beginning that the course shall be run in all the centres for three days a week and for four hours a day, leaving two working days of the week for the teachers to correct the copies and prepare work schedule for the next week.

It was all working fine, till this year’s batch decided that they wanted to finish the course in time for the marriage season in November.. and so they protested…. that the three days a week schedule was not good enough they wanted more number of teaching days…

The girls not only came for four days a week but also convinced our teachers to let them put in extra time to help them finish their work… It was a PLEASURE… to see this enthusiasm.. especially since some girls could not even read and write properly since they had long ago dropped out of the schools…

And WOW what enthusiasm prevails every year when I see them approach the final stage of their basic courses and start designing and stitching their own suits and learning that they could identify mistakes made by the so called professionals…. and that they could stitch better than a lot of them..

Somehow we HAVE to make an independent models of these schools.. so that they are not dependent upon us to run them but spread like a chain and sustain themselves in the long run… a near impossible dream… but then who says that dreams have to be simple…..