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Chapter
Information:
Facilitator:
Shree Bhuvaneshwari Mahila Ashram (SBMA)
The
Tehri district chapter is presently centered in the village of Anjanisain,
where SBMA is headquartered. In January 2004, a group of volunteers
from England and India will be spending 2.5 months in Tehri and
helping the young people of the area to organize and activate their
MCF chapters.
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General
Information and News:
Tehri is situated in the watershed of the Rivers Bhagirathi and
Alaknanda and is also the site of the controversial Tehri Dam project.
The population density in the district is 148 people per square
km. The literacy rate is 67%. There are 1,441 primary schools, 383
junior high schools, 68 high schools, and 113 intermediate (classes
11&12) schools. (Census 2001)
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Recent
Activities:
May
2003:
Twenty children from around
Anjanisain (Chandrabadni watershed) and Hindolakhal (Danda watershed)
made a trip to Rudraprayag to share what they had been learning
about watershed issues.
May
2003:
Four groups of 15 children from the Tehri District went for a
adventurous visit to Mussoorie, where they did mountaineering and
crossing rivers with ropes. This project was organized through SBMA/Plan's
Health Brigade.
April-May
2003:
Performed water testing in 18 villages around the microwatershed
area of Chandrabadni. The MCF members tested water for purity, chloride,
pH, water hardness/softness, and performed experiments along with
the village children on the water samples they collected. In most
villages, the water was soft and in Chaudyon village, they found
that the rainwater being harvested there was not suitable for drinking.
At the same time the children from those villages collected herbs,
plants and flowers to make a Herbarium file (directory of
local plant life). In this project, the MCF received support from
a professor from Garhwal University who talked to the children about
how and why to make a herbarium file.
The
MCF members also held a 3-day workshop in Pabela village for 140
children from Uttarkashi, Chamoli
and Tehri, where they discussed water, soil, forest, animals, and
humans and how they are interrelated and how human activity is damaging
the others. The children were also divided into seven groups, with
each group visiting a different village in the watershed. During
the visits, the children looked at the forests and forest conservation
around the village, water availability and conservation, etc.
January
2, 2003:
Members made a 10-day trip to Budha Kedar, an area about 4 hours
away from Anjanisain (by bus) and which had suffered a devastating
cloudburst in November, resulting in landslides that damaged three
villages and killed more than 30 people. The purpose of the trip
was establish a relationship between the children of that region
and the members of the MCF and to help the children of Budha Kedar
feel less alone. During the trip, the children visited the schools
and spread the message of the MCF. The children of Budha Kedar were
a bit overwhelmed but they warmly invited the Tehri secretariat
to visit them again and they have stayed in touch through the mail.
(Most notable, this trip occurred solely because the members of
the Tehri secretariat insisted on going to see these children so
they wouldn't feel alone!)
Other
MCF Chapters:
To
visit the webpage of another chapter, please click on the links
below:
Almora
— Bageshwar
— Chamoli
— Champawat
— Dehradun
—
Nainital
Pauri
— Pithoragarh
— Rudraprayag
— Tehri — Uttarkashi
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