Nainital

The district of Nainital is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Uttarakhand. It is known for its lakes and views of the snows. The district is among the more densely populated areas in the state, with 198 people per square km. Kumaon University is also located in Nainital and the district has a literacy rate of 79.6%, one of the highest in the state. (Census 2001)

Recent Activities
MCF Focus - Vineet
Other MCF Chapters

 
Partner Organisations:

Chestha Vikas Kalyan Samiti (Facilitator: Ms Suman)

Chirag (Facilitator: Ms Basanti Bisht)

Chaahat (Facilitator: Mr. Bisht)

Everyouth for living Planet (Facilitator: Ms. Himani)

SARAL (Facilitator: Ms. Hema Kabadwal)

VIMARSH (Facilitator: Ms Kanchan Bhandari)

Recent activities

Nov 2009: A One Day follow-up workshop on the Right to Information Act, 2005 was jointly organized by the three organizations Vimarsh, Saral and Chesta in the Municipality Auditorium in district Nainital on 22nd November, 2009. All three partner organizations had participated in the one year long Asha MCF RTI campaign. A total 144 participants - 61 from VIMARSH, 42 SARAL and 41 from CHESTA took part in the workshop.

Sept 2009: 4 more RTI village level workshop reports were received for Nainital district bringing the total number of children involved in this initiative to 575. A large number of RTI applications have been filed. Read more....

Aug 2009: MCF's partners for the RTI workshops in Nainital, CHESTHA, SARAL and VIMARSH have conducted a series of 11 village level workshops till date and have involved a total of 426 children. Read about the RTI applications filed by these children.

Jan 2009 onwards:The Silicon Valley chapter of Asha for Education has joined forces with the MCF to promote understanding and use of the Right to Information act in rural mountain communities. The MCF is partnered by 18 NGOs to help spread the awarness amongst the village children. CHESTHA, SARAL and VIMARSH in Dist. Nainital, are such partners. They are conducting RTI workshops at the village level. RTI applications have been filed with the concerned departments. Read more.....

June 2008:Devidhura Baal Panchayat , District Nainital, Partner-SARAL

We have been motivated and inspired by the MCF to establish our baal manch. The NGO SARAL has helped us get organized with the reqired rules and regulations.Members of our baal manch has been attending various workshops with the help of SARAL . Recently we attended one on Right to Information. This workshop helped us understand how we could go about obtaining information regarding various issues like our school, Panchayat etc. which we can then follow up so that we get a positive response to any problems we face in development works concerning these issues. Besides this we have also attended awareness workshops on Health, AIDS, Education etc. 
During our baal panchayat meetings we hold discussions on various issues. This month the Topic under discussion was Child Rights. We look forward to Having further discussions with the MCF on this topic so that we are able to understand it better and use that understanding to its fullest.Besides these discussions we also help keep the village clean and discuss matters of importance to us like the school etc with the Panchayat from time to time.

We enjoy reading the PABAM magazine . It not only gives us a lot of informations through its stories and other features but also tells about the other baal panchayats spread across the state and what activities are being carried out by them. This inspires us to try and do some thing similar.

Roshan Singh, Meena, Chetan Rajput
Pooja Rajput, Saurabh Rajput, Deeksha Dhami,
Jaurav Rajput and Renu Karki
Village Devidhura
District Nainital

Pehal Baal Panchayat, District Nainital, Partner-SARAL

My name is Sourav Mehera. I study in class X. I am the Secretary of Pahel baal panchayat which consists of thirty members at present. During the monsoons our baal panchayat took the initiative to repair the broken roads of our village. We also clean our school as well as our panchayat bhavan regularly. In our village almost all the children attend school , however there are a few families who are unable to afford even a bag or slippers and therefore their children did not attend school. Our baal Panchayat helped these children get the basic amenities so that they too could attend school like the rest of us. Whenever we need encouragement or guidance we go to either Hema didi, or Renu didi of the NGO, SARAL. With their help we have been able to travel outside out village and attend some workshops along with other baal Panchayats of our State. It has been a learning experience. 


Saurabh Mehra
Class X
Pehel Baal Panchayat

 

Jagrukta Baal Manch, village Belwakhan, District Nainital, Partner Chestha

I am a student of class 7 and study in St Anthony Girls intercollege in Jeolikote, which is not far from my home in Belwakhan village . we attended a two day workshop with the NGO CHESTHA, which has inspired us to set up our baal manch. We were given guidance by Poonam didi , Hema didi and Aditi didi. We have made the rules and regulations for our baal manch. During our meetings we play the games that were taught to us on communication etc. We enjoy reading the PABAM magazine which besides the stories, comics, poems also gives us a lot of information on what other baal Panchayats are doing in their areas. This has further inspired us and we too are thinking in terms of setting up a library in our villages.

Sakshi Arya,
class7,

village Belwakhan,

Jeolikote,
Dist Nainital

September 2005 - After attending the Disaster Preparedness workshop in July, the children of the Jeolikote Bal Panchayat went to Nainital to speak to the district program officer for disaster mitigation about the landslides in the village of Aalookhet .July 4-5, 2005: Disaster Preparedness workshop - The District Magistrate of Nainital, Dr. Rakesh Kumar, and the Disaster Mitigation and Management Cell hosted a 2-day workshop for the children of Nainital about how to prepare for natural disasters.June 3, 2005: Library Inauguration - The children, with support from VIMARSH, have opened a library in the Mongoli Market. The one-room resource centre is accessible to children from several surrounding villages. Smita represented the MCF office at the opening and presented them with some books made possible by a grant from the Barton Foundation. The books were a mix of English and Hindi and ranged from a health guide called "Where There is No Doctor" to story books to resource books.


  • The young people of Mongoli and the surrounding villages have already established 6 village-level MCF chapters. Each of these groups has taken on the vitally important task of universal birth registration: each chapter keeps a register of every child in the village under the age of 18. They note every new birth in the village and what vaccinations have been administered to the baby. They periodically compare their book to the official register maintained by the village pradhan (elected head of the village) and have already made numerous corrections to that record.
  • In the village of Kuleti, the MCF chapter, Shakti Sangathan, has cleaned the path to the temple, cleaned their village's water source and, for the first time, included women in the celebration of the spring festival, Holi.
  • In Bajun village, the water source is open and so gets dirtied by animals and falling leaves. The children asked the villagers to help and when no help was forthcoming they collected their own money to hire a mason to start working on building a cover for the spring. This got the attention of the village leadership and they are now getting more help.
  • In the village of Mongoli, they have an old stone naula (water source) that was originally built in 1854. The MCF chapter cleans it every month. Their efforts have caught the attention of the village leadership, which is now putting money into fixing it up. The children have also broken new ground by getting access to the local temple for women, who have traditionally not been allowed inside.
  • The children of Thapla are trying to fight alcoholism and gambling in their village. They have been talking to the men themselves as well as their families. So far they feel they have been able to reduce the amount of public inebriation, but are still working on the larger problem of alcoholism.
  • Recently a girl fell from a tree and was seriously injured. The MCF members of Mongoli collected money from each home in the village for her medical treatment. This so inspired the women's group and education committee in the village that they too pitched in to help with her medical expenses.


    Vineet Bairagi signed up for the ICMC expecting just to have a good time. Now he's become the MCF's most ardent and active volunteer in Nainital. Click here to read his story.

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    Other MCF Chapters:
    To visit the webpage of another chapter, please click on the links below:

    Almora — Bageshwar — Chamoli — Champawat — Dehradun — Haridwar— Nainital
    Pauri — Pithoragarh — Rudraprayag — Tehri — Udham Singh Nagar — Uttarkashi

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