Empowering youth towards active citizenship | Story of HaiJalo | Bombil Ruth - GoGreenGuru: Sustainability in Action

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I'm not too sure if the answer is always in one huge massive body like a big ship

(00:07):
trying to engineer solutions for dozens of areas.
I do think that if you had a lot of little HaiJalos, a lot of people boosting civic action,
awareness, we would be better off.
Several other topics or areas of this before we actually came to climate change because

(00:32):
we felt it was super important to first understand what is the mindset that God has here.
What is somebody's God?
Art is someone finds God in art, somebody finds their deeper self, their deeper meaning
through I don't know dance, through gardening, wherever it is that you find that space to settle

(00:54):
down and contemplate, take it.
And I feel like the will to act or the resolution to act in a way, it comes in those quieter
moments.
We take civic action in a way that is fun and that is a lot of personal growth in it.
There is room for growing as a person, as a spiritual being, as a skilled being and in the

(01:22):
process you are also serving your community.
Oh, no, what is more beautiful than that.
Hello there and welcome to Go Green Guru Sustainability in Action.
In today's episode, we bring to you the story of HaiJalo.

(01:43):
A story of possibilities of how when given this space, youth can become spear headers
of change, where they can rewrite the narrative all the while discovering themselves.
Set in Champawat in the Pahadi area of India, this is the story of how people can come together

(02:11):
to make things happen.
We have amidst us today, Bombil Ruth who started HaiJalo almost three years ago and now has a
whole team of Pahadi youth supporting this beautiful initiative, where people take ownership

(02:32):
for themselves and for their society, for their environment.
So whether you are an educator or someone who is on the path of trying to do something for
Mother Earth, for your community, if you are on that path of exploration, I am sure.
A little something in this episode will call to you.

(02:54):
Hello Bombil, welcome to our show.
Thank you so much for joining me here today.
I am so excited to have this conversation with you.
Could you talk a little more about the place you are in, where it is and how it is like,
how is life like?
Absolutely.

(03:15):
I live in a tiny district called Champawat, which is on the Idon Nepal border.
Champawat is somewhere between Pythodakurd also touches the district of Almoda, Ishinutra
Khan and it is not very well known, thankfully.
That way we don't have too many tourists here and the place has retained a lot of its natural

(03:41):
beauty.
Champawat is in the Kumaon region, so people who live here are Kumawani, this peak Kumaya,
which is a local dialect.
I mean when you say Pahadi, Pahadi is actually a whole bunch of languages spoken in all the
mountainous areas here.
But here we speak Kumaya.
When I say we, I don't speak Kumaya as yet, I can understand.

(04:04):
So women have to be careful when they are gossiping around me.
But yeah.
That's the place.
It's about 16, 50 meters at that altitude.
And we have a lot of native forests still in this area, lots of original forests that
have been here for a long time.

(04:27):
Beautiful location, you know, speckled with your Deodartol, conifers.
You have Pida, which is Deodars.
There is oak, a lot of oak, different kinds of oak trees.
Yeah, lots of berries that grow here.
So spring time is usually for, like, you know, berry juice, pickle down your hands and,

(04:50):
you know, being greedy, anything as many berries as you can.
Lovely, lovely.
So Hejalo is the small organization that I run here.
It is Hejalo means, "Hoojaega", in Kumawani.
Now, the usage of the word is quite interesting.
So if you have, you know, a very, very heavy sack and somebody is trying to lift it and you

(05:16):
are saying to them, "Kee, don't lift it, it's too heavy."
And they say, "Arihejalo", which is a way of saying, "Oops, it will happen, you have faith,
you know, something will emerge, a solution will emerge."
And that, the beauty of it, isn't that?
And people believing with all their heart that a solution is in the making.

(05:37):
I say, "I needed that positivity in my life."
Because I'm someone who's like, "I operate from Varskistanario."
Like, before starting anything, my mind is already playing out the 50 different ways it
can go wrong.
I needed Hejalo.
I needed a good pick, do the Hejalo in my life.
So we started it.
And our journey is very much characteristic of the name because it's a small organization.

(06:03):
I work with youth in the area and I'll, what we would love to see.
I don't know if I'll call it an aim or objective mission.
There will be big words, but I think we want to see people contributing to their community
is more and more.
And believing in the strength of community, I think I want to see it dawn on people like,

(06:28):
"Oh, you know, this is what we can do, huh, if you all get together."
And whether that is youth for women, for resolving some of the most pressing social issues
and environmental issues, and whatever we can do at the local level.
I'm not too sure if the answer is always in one huge, massive body, like a big ship,

(06:54):
trying to, you know, engineer solutions for dozens of areas.
I do think that if you had a lot of little Hejalo, a lot of people boosting civic action,
awareness, advocacy, you know, pushing for conversations between the government and people

(07:17):
in different places, then we would be better off.
It is possible because the sense of ownership for things turning out the way we want increases
from there, right?
So that's what we do.
In its current form at HaiJalo, we were bringing in youth from some of the smallest villages

(07:39):
of this district of Champavat, we live with us for three months, and we work on some kind
of a social issue.
At the same time, they will learn English and computers, which is something they don't
really get, that education in their in government schools over here is not easy, especially in

(07:59):
the schools that are in far-flung areas.
So we're mostly working with youth once they've cleared their 12th grade.
There are a few exceptions where someone dropped out of school after their 10s and then they
come to us.
So for five months, they would be learning a bit of English and computers, but also working
on social issues.
Very first batch, we were early just like dabbling in this, we didn't know what we were

(08:22):
doing.
We started out with a couple of youth coming here to the house.
This was during the first lockdown for coronavirus.
We went around the village collecting cloth from people and we had managed to raise some
money through donations.
There were a number of families that were struggling because men who had migrated out for

(08:44):
work had come back home.
Income sources were depleting, savings were depleting, and what we said is let's give people
cloth and let them sit in two bags, cloth bags, which we then distribute.
We just give it off to shop over here for them to use instead of plastic.
There was a great experiment.

(09:05):
It was really awesome.
I had youth in the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th grade working on these projects.
Later on, we chose a couple of them.
They would receive a small, very small amount, something like 600 rupees a month and they
would train here.
They would work on social issues.

(09:26):
So during that time, we tried to understand men's solan touchability in the mountains and
do some work around that on men's solan awareness.
We worked on a bit of plastic pollution collecting packets of plastic or multi-leared packaging,
for all your wafer, biscuits, etc.

(09:48):
And separating them as for company-wise and sending it back to the company.
There's a waste that you send to our mountains.
It's just turning into plastic pollution here.
We deal with it or maybe fulfill your EPR, your extended producer responsibility in this
area as well, not just in big cities like there are done Mumbai, Delhi and other places.

(10:13):
So, yeah, I think that's how we began.
Some of the youth suggested that one of them came back actually, a punker saying that, "Bumble,
this is a really good program.
I really wish more youth could come to this because I only realised how it changed me
about three or four months after the program.

(10:36):
I could see the changes in myself.
Why don't we give it a structure and do something with it, take on more people?"
I said, "Yeah, okay, let's try that."
And we managed to scrunch up a little bit of funding from family friends.
And there were a lot of beautiful, beautiful people who believe in what we were trying to
do coming to our aid.

(10:58):
They make me blush.
And we started the first batch.
We brought in youth from really remote areas.
We had two girls whose village was 13 kilometres walking from a motorable road.
So, they would walk 13 kilometres to their inter-college, to their school and back to be able

(11:21):
to complete their 12th grade.
So, we had people like that.
We had youth coming to us from homes which were rife with domestic violence.
We had a number of boys who were feeling very pressured about what are they going to do
with their lives and how will they make it in the world out there.

(11:43):
So, in the first batch, the formal batch that we ran, we had eight graduates.
It was a three-month batch.
We did some pretty daring stuff.
In the second batch, we said, "Okay, it's really hard when we're working on multiple social
issues."
There's a big one.
I'm working on that.
So, we picked substance abuse.
The students, we had about 10 students in that batch.

(12:06):
We worked on substance abuse.
We began with visiting the local D-Addiction Centre to learn what is really substance abuse
from people who are working very closely on it.
We had online meetings with people who had overcome their addictions.
We met with a drug and alcohol counselor.

(12:27):
We read, watched videos and this was the entire team together, the facilitators, the students,
all of us together.
I think enough final activity, what we did was we did a pedal yatra, walking a little
walk across the district.
So, we had two teams of youth.

(12:50):
These are 17, 18-year-olds, like 18-year-olds, not 17.
And walking from 65 kilometers away from the town within a week's time, going through
villages, staying overnight, wherever they can find place in a Panchayatkar in an
abandoned shop in a mandir, spending time going by Jansit Abhavaji.

(13:14):
And walking all the way through villages, talking to women who are victims of domestic violence,
talking, witnessing firsthand how people are drinking in Bhabhav's in broad daylight, seeing
young kids standing around and watching old men gamble.

(13:37):
These are some of the stories that that's, you know, our trip was made of and walking
the entire way.
And that walk was very important to be able to reflect on a lot of things, for these youth
to be able to push themselves to do things they ever thought they could do before.
You know, to learn about teamwork, to learn about supporting each other, you know, even

(13:58):
in difficult time.
Yeah, and we covered, we did activities in around 20 villages, all kinds of different things.
And finally, we did some narebadi in the town when we came back over here.
We invited a paralegal volunteer, Sittvethasand, and listening to our experiences.

(14:21):
So you worked with Hyjalo, working with the youth, helping them feel more empowered to
be a more involved in society, with environmental concerns, to help them discover themselves,
to help them grow as people.
What is the role of youth actually in creating a more sustainable world?

(14:44):
So what is their role and how can we empower them to actually achieve their potential in
that?
We could share some stories from Hyjalo, how you are working on this.
Yeah.
And for youth, they have the power of choice right now.

(15:04):
So the world is such that you can do multiple things.
You can be involved in multiple areas.
That power of choice adds to that the knowledge that they can, you know, they can take in with
discretion and the will to act.

(15:25):
This is a powerful combination for youth.
And what is there to gain from it?
I would say the most important thing, probably more than like the outcome in all yes, you know,
if you are able to pull back from climate change, if you are able to award some of the worst
consequences, then of course that is great.

(15:48):
But to build a kind of narrative where we don't see ourselves as just receivers, you know,
as the masters of the planet, as the only species that matters, but to write a new story

(16:08):
where we are one of the many beings on the planet.
We are not the most important, but we do have a very special gift and that is the gift to
think, act and to act in favor of all other beings.
I feel like if together the youth are able to script this narrative and to act it out with

(16:33):
their choices, with what they choose to buy, with how much they choose to consume.
And that's another big role, right?
It's to move away from certain roles, the role of a consumer of someone that's just, you
know, how you consume or as in, I think, they'll always be consuming, but I would say in a
more conscious manner, right?

(16:56):
So there is a lot of scope for this and I think that in the process, they will learn a lot
about themselves.
And when you serve community, you are unknowingly, unknowingly serving parts of yourself.
You are serving your higher purpose.

(17:18):
And you're realizing things, you're learning things along the way about what you stand for,
what your thoughts are about things, what is your opinion, what are the values on which
those opinions rest?
What are the decisions that keep you awake at night?
And yeah, these are, you know, experiences that I would wish for many, many youth because

(17:42):
unless we have these, we are just moving through life.
And I think in that sense, probably to take what is popularly known as the hero's journey
to reach one of them, that will be a story worth scripting, I think.

(18:03):
It would be history.
It would be not just history, it will be what you have learnt from history and how we are,
you know, actively rewriting it.
That's a beautiful take on the potential of what youth can be.
So how do you think we can actually do this in reality, in our current context?

(18:26):
So maybe we've done a lot of experiments with hija, with the rural youth, with the hardy,
with the weather and we have them maybe learn to question, learn to explore.
How have we been doing this and how can we do this on a larger way as well?
How can we make this the new narrative where we all learn, we learn, we question, we

(18:50):
can see how we can make this happen.
For youth or for people, I think it's, or for people who are not really in, you know, the
first half of their life, I feel like dancers, not very different.
I would speak about like two things.
One is at the individual level, maybe anyone is at the systemic level.

(19:13):
At the individual level, I feel like the first thing to do is a lot of self exploration
and growing as a person, but not necessarily in the way we understand growth, not growing
in just knowledge, in degrees, in being able to, you know, snag a really great job that

(19:38):
with the six figure salary.
I feel that one of the big tools for growth is contemplation, slash spirituality.
In whatever form people choose to depend to this or to explore, you know, questions in

(20:00):
their mind, questions that they are suppressing a lot of the times or things that, you know,
create small disturbance or an annoyance within, when you read disturbing articles in the newspaper,
when you're feeling a rush of climate anxiety, when, you know, you see something that you
don't have the time to change or you tell yourself you don't have the time to do anything

(20:25):
about it.
I feel that the answer to a lot of this is to really get with a group or do something
that leads you to sit and think, to sit and contemplate.
And in whatever form one explores their spiritual side, whether it is through a particular religion,

(20:49):
some kind of, you know, if whatever is a person's God, sport is somebody's God, you know,
art is someone finds God in art, somebody finds their deeper self and their deeper meaning
through, I don't know, dance through gardening, wherever it is that you find that space to settle

(21:09):
down and contemplate, take it.
That is the rarest and most expensive thing in the world right now that most people don't
even know they need.
And I feel like the will to act or the resolution to act in a way, it comes in those quieter

(21:30):
moments, it does not come when we are pushing ourselves from one thing to the next.
How to do this?
And that's a good question because it's tricky.
It is not something that ideally, it's not something that we think of and we say, okay,
I need to get spiritual, you know.
There are some ways that you join a class, join a yoga class, you know, commit yourself

(21:54):
to a hobby, anything where you can immerse yourself, you know, where there is time for
the mind to settle and to come alive in itself.
Move around with that kind of crowd and this also works for if you're trying to change
your habits, you know, if you're trying to eat healthier, if you're trying to switch to

(22:15):
organic food, go to the organic farmers market in your city.
Find out who are people who are farming organically around instead of taking a vacation
to a fancy destination.
Try out one of the farms that is in the vicinity of your city.

(22:35):
So by changing or by moving around with people who are interested in something similar,
I think that sets the foundation for exploring one's own interest in a certain area.
So that's something that can be done.
So I feel like a lot of it at the spiritual level, another part of what I'm talking about

(22:58):
is somewhere that realization needs to come that I am not superior.
We are not superior.
Yes, like all of us are going to suffer, all and a lot of think about species that have
gone extinct.
A lot of them have already suffered, you know, the wrongdoing.

(23:19):
Or an unnatural death is how I put it.
So I think the realization that, you know, the questioning, why am I here, you know, if
I'm not superior, why have I been given this brain that thinks this way?
Am I just some anomaly in aviation?

(23:39):
Or do I actually have a purpose that is greater than roti, kapadam, makan, bengla, gadi, whatever
it is?
Something more than that.
So yeah, I think spirituality is an amazing tool and whether one finds it in a monastery,
in, you know, roaming in the mountains or whatever it is.

(24:01):
But yeah, to just tear away from vanity, to tear away from, you know, short and instant
gratification and look for deeper meaning.
I feel that is important.
Like in the ones one knows if a person or if a youth or any person, you know, feels that

(24:23):
there's something more they can do to answer that call to leadership is one of the greatest
services that one can do for the earth right now.
And I first I'll explain why I feel that is so right?
There are not many people, not enough keyrays in the world.
There is a keeda inside a lot of people.

(24:46):
And I say keeda, I mean, there is a bug that is pushing you in a direction that flows
away from the mainstream that branches off into a different kind of possibility for a
different kind of world.
Answering that call to leadership not only serves the earth, it serves other people that

(25:09):
are taking that journey.
It will bring you to a community where you feel more at peace, more at home, more like
yourself.
It will, it will drive you crazy.
It will break you down.
It will push you to your limits.

(25:31):
Mostly what I have realized though is that you're not entirely alone in that.
There are so many others going through that journey and they are more willing to share
bits of themselves, their experiences, their strengths, their networks.
Then you find in a world where people are just moving ahead like a herd or moving through

(25:55):
life waiting for somebody else to take the lead, to do something different or saying that
okay, you know, I'm making that much money.
I will spend much on a vacation, this much I will save for rainy day slash medical
bills and this teeny tiny bit, I will give back to the earth or basically I'm saying there's

(26:18):
a whole bunch of people that are just right now benefiting from being allowed to exist
on the planet without caring for it, right?
And to break away from that itself is an act of leadership because it takes a lot of

(26:39):
guts to do that and it takes a lot, it's a journey of self discovery.
Answer that call, take that journey.
How do you take that journey once again find others that are taking it?
Plan planning is really important.
If you want to branch out into an alternative way of living, if you want to branch out into

(27:01):
you know, an eco conscious lifestyle, if you want to start your own organization, if you
want to join an organization or give your time somewhere else, plan it in a way that it's
a smooth transition and that you're not suddenly turning your life topsy turvy because
that will just add to your worries.

(27:21):
What is the call that you're actually answering to?
Why do you want to do this and how will you do it in a way that least disrupts your, you
know, your status quo or where you can be at peace?
I think that's how I would say it.
And when I say you or the person in question, it also means everyone in your close, in the

(27:44):
vicinity of your, your heart, your family, your friends who are closest to you, your existing
networks and contacts and systems that matter to you.
You know, the ones that you want to, you don't, where you want to consciously rock the boat
with people you need to do that with.
So I think that's one thing.

(28:06):
Yeah.
And finally, when I say at the systemic level, I think one of the systems that could change,
that would, that could be game changing for everyone is education, right?
Because not everyone is growing up in families that are either eco conscious or community

(28:31):
oriented anymore.
We cannot fight this, just as individuals popping up and doing something.
This has to be done through the, you know, on the backs of small communities on, with
the power of people coming together.
And that's not a learning that one often finds in one's family because usually families

(28:54):
are made up of, you know, caregivers and people who are, you know, earning and they are also
busy doing that.
And sometimes there's not enough time to focus on these kind of values or to sit and help
or guide one's kids through this exploration.
That's where I think schools, colleges, education system, play a vital role.

(29:17):
Right now these systems are churning out, basically, for a very capitalistic world.
And I know means an expert on capitalism or communism or any of that stuff.
I, I wasn't paying attention in class to be very honest.
But what I mean is that there are a handful, what I observe is that there are a handful

(29:44):
of companies or organizations that are, you know, speeding ahead to the top that slowly,
are, you know, taking with them or they require people to keep them going.
And not functioning very, very, what I say, very consciously, not so much like they're,

(30:06):
they're main motivational prophets.
It's not, they are not social enterprises.
They are businesses, they are enterprises.
And the way it should always have been is that every organization should have had every,
money making entity, profit making entity should always have had a triple bottom line.

(30:28):
I don't think social and price, the way we say, you know, there's farming and then there's
organic farming.
So farming is where you normally do farming and you, you know, put your chemicals and use
a, what do you call it, chemical pesticides and fertilizers in the soil.
But organic farming is used to denote that, okay, this is a special kind of farming, whereas

(30:52):
this should have always been called farming and we should have been calling the other one.
This is a less environment, different way or this is, you know, chemical farming.
Similarly, I feel like with businesses, there are businesses or enterprises and then social
enterprises, every organization should always have had at least two bottom lines, one where

(31:13):
you're making money and one where you are not causing any harm to the environment.
You should at least have been neutral in that sense.
So I feel like right now that is not the story when we look at ourselves as a whole big
unit or let's even, let's break it down in a way that people can observe in their own

(31:34):
localities, right?
Where are you shopping at?
Are you shopping at a big department store at, at a mega mart?
And, you know, is that making one organization more powerful?
How would you feel if you were living in a community or in a space where there were smaller

(31:56):
traders but more people that had control over the market, more vendors, essentially and more
people benefiting from that?
How would you feel about, you know, products that are not having to travel that far to get
to you but if you were consuming locally?
So I feel that this notion or this way of being, this, for this to become the new normal,

(32:24):
this is what has to become the new normal for change to happen.
And people are, and the education that we give our children, what we tell them, the world
is supposed to be like, what are you part of building?
What are we training you to build?
Are we training you?
Are we teaching you in a way that you just go ahead and you feed these systems and you

(32:47):
become, you know, cogs in those machines?
Or do we, do we, do we educate in a way that we are also willing to receive learning
and that we are, you know, educating for a better tomorrow?
What is the goal of education?
And I feel that the more, for this, we do require more alternative schools, more organizations

(33:14):
working with communities and community development.
Most spaces where a person can come and have a different realization or have that realization
about, hey, what is going wrong?
You, you know, what is my role in this?
What do I have to do?

(33:34):
So I feel that in terms of that systems, of course, the education system is going to be huge
and possibly another one is all of your various entities working directly for environment.
They need a lot more, say, a lot more power, a lot more autonomy, whether it is forest departments

(33:58):
on the ground, government, led forest departments, whether it is, you know, people working with
tribes, people working with indigenous folk.
Yeah, whether it is anybody into any kind of, you know, who is spurring green businesses
on.
So I feel like rather than these, just being the side dishes, they need to come to the

(34:22):
fore, they need to be empowered in a big way and they need to, you know, at the risk of
making mistakes and losing out and then being held responsible, but they need to be given
more autonomy.
They have to be able to say, we think this will work, we want to try it, you know, and be

(34:42):
given the chance to do those kind of things.
And I don't know what I can possibly give as an example.
I can tell you one thing that in Champawat, we have, or all across the Komao, there are
a lot of fine trees because these were brought in during the British, when the British were
ruling India.
Lots of fine and fine is, is a hardy species.

(35:07):
I have nothing personally against the tree, but it's not great for, you know, water conservation.
It has a tendency to not allow anything to grow on the Indian story.
So, and the forest department's hands are pretty tied here because there is no felling

(35:28):
rule above a thousand meters.
So if they wanted to experiment, I'm just saying, I'm not saying I know that they do want
to experiment, but if they wanted to experiment with, you know, changing lands that are under
a pine right now to more native forests, how do they do that?
You know, unless somebody takes a decision quickly somewhere that it needs to be tested.

(35:52):
So yeah, there are these things.
So if you ask me, this is a good starting point for people is to actually start asking questions
that matter and answering them yourself.
So at HaiJalo, how do you guys do this?
How do you build that spirit of questioning and, you know, expanding those answers, going

(36:14):
on that whole exploration?
How have the fellows been doing that?
How has that journey been like for you as a company?
Because, you know, I also have to, you know, admit that I am a product of the same education
system in an urban area that has existed for a long time.

(36:35):
And my own journey has been one of learning, you know, learning to share space, learning
to not need like to kind of hate, trim my ambitions for being the smartest person in the
room.
And in that sense, I feel like we're trying to create that balance, but despite the fact

(36:59):
that I'm the only, I'm the only urban person, urban origin person on the team right
now, everybody else here is from these areas and I think I try to learn from them as much
as possible.
That's one thing.
We have decided we've increased our work day by half an hour and in that half an hour,

(37:24):
we do meditation and exercise.
The entire team together does this every day.
It brings us closer together.
It creates the space for contemplation.
It serves as a reminder that your physical body and what it needs in its movement is very

(37:46):
important.
And creating that work-life balance is one way that we've been trying to do this.
So at Hejalo and I'm sure like a lot of funders or potential funders will not be happy
to hear this.
But at Hejalo, we work only six and a half hours in a day.

(38:08):
So we might come to work at 8.30 in the morning or 8 o'clock and we'll be out by 3 pm, 3.30
and we feel that is essential because if you give your entire daylight hours to just your
job and by that I mean getting ready to go to your job, the commute, working, commuting
back and winding down, then essentially you're only left with with non-day light hours,

(38:36):
with night hours to, from dusk to dawn, to give to yourself to your family.
And the question is that really enough, you know?
Could it be that we have pushed ourselves too hard and that's one of the reasons that we
are, we're not in connect with ourselves, nor are societies anymore.

(39:01):
So I think one of the conscious decisions is to have a shorter working day, but to have
a fruitful, a productive working, working day and to create space for learning.
So we're always, you know, we, we, even though we don't have a dedicated budget for capacity
building, we're not, it's not holding us back.

(39:24):
We connect with people, we ask them to take sessions for us, we go and visit departments locally,
we do our own, you know, intelligence gathering, we're trying to make sense of our world and
make more informed decisions about our projects.
So that's something that, that we're trying.

(39:45):
Also all of us have a journal, everybody in the team has a journal where they write down
their thoughts and we try to have one to one conversations with all of the staff.
I try to do it at least once a month and may not always be in a very formal way.
Sometimes it will just be, you walk with me, you know?

(40:06):
Are you going to the market?
Let's take a walk together.
And then along the way, will stop work, will talk life, will talk family, it will be a
holistic conversation because as individuals, we are holistic, we are made of much more than
just our professional value.
So yeah, being able to do that, whenever possible, we, we have a centre where we usually use

(40:36):
it to seek shelter from the cold or rain and to operate from, but we, we do like to sit
out in the sun together, all of us and just like we're sunny hands and working there or
talking, we sometimes will say, let's just go and work from the forest today, you know?
We also started doing a little farming because we've been working on, working towards doing

(41:02):
something about climate change.
We thought it was essential since we are from a rural area to do some work related to
farming.
So we planted chilies this year and palak, radish, yeah, a couple of things, but that, I
think this is what we did on Gandhi Jaini as well.

(41:25):
We're like, no, and we're not going to make a big hoopla about it.
We're not going to bring in a bana and click photograph to it because this is what we
should be doing.
This is what everyone just should be doing.
If you're just consuming 365 days a year, you know, your entire life, you know, so for 60
or 70, 80 years, you have never stepped foot in a field.

(41:47):
You don't know what these plants look like.
It's not a criticism as much as I feel bad because you're losing out on something.
This is magic in the working.
If you don't, if you don't explore nature, you don't understand magic.
You don't, you won't believe in magic, you know?
You won't really be able to touch the plinths of your spirituality.

(42:12):
There's so much to be explored then.
We try and do that.
We try and create the space to do that.
I'm in all the other stuff, you know, the report writing, the working with youth, mobilization,
organizing activities.
That's where it also comes to things like, you know, advocacy or taking action.

(42:34):
As I think I mentioned before, we have been trying to get meetings with several departments
to talk about what their plans are for climate change.
And according to a 2014 action plan for Uttarakhand State, the forest department is the
nodal agency for leading this plan.
We are now nine years from then and was so hard to get a meeting with them.

(42:56):
They gave us such a run around until finally, the tiny organization in the tiny district
that is Hejalu.
And we said, we're going to file a complaint.
And we call the chief ministers complaint helpline, lodge to complaint.
We got a call back saying, what happened, you know, and we said, this is the problem.

(43:19):
Every time we need to meet with a government officer, we have to, they have to, they don't
have a schedule, they don't have a calendar of sorts, I suppose.
We're always just scrambling, writing letters, dropping it at their office, calling up to
15, 20 times to follow up on one meeting.
You have to give us one hour and we spend like a good five hours or six hours just trying

(43:44):
to get that meeting.
When we come there, you know, and we're made to wait.
I have been to meet the three different district magistrates in Champawat, because they also
change so frequently.
And this is what I meant about systems, it systems need to change unless there is one person
rooted in a place for long enough, how do they follow up on anything, you know, how do

(44:05):
they lead, how do they build an ownership for anything.
So I have been to meet district magistrates here and every time I have waited for at least
an hour, nothing less than that.
So yeah, and we felt this needs to change.
So speaking up, taking that action, filing that complaint, saying what is not right, it

(44:31):
takes a lot of guts because the minute you do it, you seem like the complaint box, you
seem like somebody who's rocking the boat, you know, who's upsetting the way that systems
are or not able to understand that, oh, they have their own issues, they come on, you've
had these issues for years, you should have figured out a way around them already.

(44:51):
For how long does, you know, do we, we are partners in this, if you're going to do something,
you can't do it without people, if we want to be governed, we can't do it without you,
but it is, it should be an equal relationship.
And I think teaching youth that, like, how do you see the government, most youth here aspire
to government jobs, they spend two or three months in Hejalo and if I never say one mean

(45:18):
thing about a government apartment, if I never call out one incompetency or incompetent action,
most of our students will still leave this program feeling disillusioned and not wanting
to work with the government because all the officers they meet along the way are far from

(45:40):
inspiring all the systems.
We have been, you know, called to schools to do career, I mean, to talk about the Hejalo
program and mobilize, but on the way out, we sign a register saying we've done career counseling.
And that's how it works, you know, checking the boxes.
And I think how to slowly move away from that is something that Hejalo is, is dabbling

(46:05):
in right now.
How do we play a, you know, a role as people who voice their, their, their displeasure or
people who can, you know, dissent in a way that actually helps the system eventually and
not just for the sake of finding a release for frustration.

(46:29):
So these are things that we are experimenting with, these are our own learnings and I think
in that sense, I would really love to network with other organizations that are finding success
in these areas and say, hey, how are you doing it?
Please tell us because we're, you know, we're sinking here a lot of the times.
Some other things that we are doing is creating spaces for youth here to talk about themselves,

(46:54):
their lives, their pains, their hurts, their goals, their fears.
No such place exists sadly for youth and typically in the mountains, people are not so expressive
about these things.
We've been a little more than men and that's only sometimes for youth and children are

(47:16):
simply just, did they grow up believing that your spectrum elders love your, you know,
people younger than you?
So you play with those younger than you when you can get around with them and when you
see somebody enough as an authority figure, you just bow, not, well, not bow, but you just
take asher what and you don't question.

(47:39):
You don't talk to them about your feelings about what's hurting you, what's healing you
and I feel like somewhere in that process or what's happening is that they're not speaking
to anyone, they're not talking to anybody about what they're going through.
They witness a lot of them witness domestic violence.
If not in their own homes in their neighborhoods, for sure, they're witnessing it.

(48:05):
Substance abuse.
Very common now in the mountains.
Poverty, you know, not being able to afford to go to the nearest town which is six hours
away to go to Haldwani where the good hospitals are and get check up done and what that can

(48:26):
do to a family.
So there's no space for them to express this.
So creating safe spaces where we all can sit together and we do this with every batch,
with every group of people that comes in once a year.
We sit down for two, three days and we all just share.
We talk about our life stories.
We talk about the parts that had us really, really, really down and at least there is that

(48:51):
release, you know, and that's how together as a community, you're not the only one holding
your own hurt and walking around.
Now it is a group of people holding each other as they hold that hurt.
And that is special.
So I feel like this is what we are trying to do out here and it's yielding good results.

(49:15):
I think that if I've heard you say things like, you know, there used to be a very angry person.
I used to be, you know, angry all the time and meditation has really helped me.
I, we get a lot of you saying that I couldn't speak confidently in front of people and
now I can.

(49:35):
Yeah, also, you know, how we're another thing that we're doing, which I feel is truly special,
is at our own level doing some research with our current batch, which is the third batch
of youth that that are in training.
They decided that we want to do some work on the topic of caste.

(49:56):
So we banded together and we formed a little, we did a little campaign called, you know,
Gohich is a, um, um, um, words for this is it, this, this place, right?
So what we wanted to do was mark the period in history, mark this time as a time from here

(50:16):
on out, people are going to move away from caste discrimination.
How do we know this?
So we went, um, we interviewed around 300 youth from the nearby, uh, degree college and
we asked them questions like do you believe in caste?
Do you follow caste norms?
And about 61% of them said we don't follow.

(50:40):
Yes.
10% said we don't want to follow it, but we feel forced to, um, and which is probably true
for a lot more of them, but on their own, when they're with their friends, they are not
following it.
And that was great to hear because now we know that the coming generation is going to
care less about the caste divide.

(51:00):
It's going to disintegrate further.
Uh, and, and probably this is a nice time to have conversations about what inclusion actually
means to get into this messy subject of reservation and have those conversations, but I think
on our part as a little organization formed of one person with some ideas and a whole bunch

(51:27):
of youth with so much of Ganghu in them, uh, to step up and say, we're going to find out
about this.
We're going to go and research.
I think learning about the problem in the way we can, we may not have pulled out some
major reports.
We may not have been able to conduct a really huge and stellar research.

(51:47):
We don't have the training or the funds.
We just used our brains and did what we could.
And anyone can do that.
Yeah.
So this is the kind of work we enjoy doing.
And I think it's also what makes Faisaloo quite special is that we take civic action in
a way that is fun.

(52:08):
Uh, and that is a lot of personal growth in it.
There is room for, uh, growing as a person, as a spiritual being, as, uh, as a skilled being.
Uh, and in the process, you are also serving your community.
Um, no, what's more beautiful than that?

(52:32):
That's a beautiful sharing indeed.
So yeah, how, just creating that safe space for people to just explore, ask questions and
try and seek those answers and, and also to, uh, learn a lot in the process to grow as a
person and maybe also use mentioned about gardening or like farming and using our hands being

(52:57):
in nature and then going out there doing research, going on ground and then having that spirit
of inquiry and doing things together as a community.
So yeah, those are all some beautiful takeaways from your journey with Faisaloo.
And, yeah, and I also remember, uh, you mentioning your, your current Bachelors, I've been working

(53:24):
on climate change education.
So also, so one is the activism side where you're trying to, uh, figure out how to work
things out on a systemic level with the government departments and another part of it is working
with children and in schools and trying to build that climate change awareness and then

(53:45):
bringing in that knowledge aspect, which is also missing today and also how to make it more
interesting, more approachable, more relatable for people and exciting as well as like.
And in a, in a way that we, we feel connected to it and can really understand and make sense

(54:06):
of the whole thing.
So, how have you been, uh, working on this climate change awareness?
What are some strategies you've been following to make it more approachable and interesting
and how have the children be responding to that?
Select a share.
Yeah, that's a great question.

(54:27):
Even the process of the fellows for designing it as well.
All around from here, we draw you through this program.
They're interviewed.
Uh, they were coming in for a period of five months during which we, about 25% of our time
is in teaching English, 25% of our time is in teaching digital skills.
Um, the rest of the time they learn and work on, learn about and work on social issues.

(54:52):
So, um, we start the first month by just delving into some of the more popular, uh, more
prevailed and rather social issues of this area, caste discrimination, poverty, uh, substance
abuse, uh, gender discrimination, um, environmental issues we don't touch at this point.

(55:13):
So, we'll look at mostly things affecting people directly.
And, uh, in each of these topics, we go up a deeper.
We wonder, we ask, what is it exactly?
We watch videos.
Um, we, we make it in a very interesting class, for instance, in our disability, uh, class,
we usually, uh, spend about two hours, um, without one of our senses or somebody will be

(55:39):
blindfolded, someone will, you know, have your phones plugged in so they are unable to hear,
uh, someone will have a hand, you know, a tie behind the back so they can't use it, uh,
or unable to walk.
And we, we actively go about trying to do tasks in this state.

(55:59):
And that is, uh, you know, it's really the awakening for you.
Oh my God.
Can you imagine being having this for life and on top of that, the judgment and on top of
that, the lack of opportunity.
And so, so we, we try and create more experiential learning experiences around, um, these topics.
In the second month, we start moving into environmental issues.

(56:22):
So we started, uh, we explore topics like food security, uh, the relationship between
environmental issues and population, human population growth, uh, evolution of man and also
evolution of man's thinking around the environment, man as human kinds, right?
Um, we looked at soil pollution, water pollution, uh, air pollution, um, and several other,

(56:50):
you know, topics or areas of this before we actually came to climate change because we
felt it was super important to first understand what is the mindset that got us here.
Um, and in this way, we, uh, we, we entered about understanding about climate change really
in the third month of the fellowship and it off the program.

(57:14):
And then once, uh, our fellows itself, so students who had been with us in the last batch,
we picked five of them to work as fellows this time and they organized awareness sessions
for the rest of the, the students who were part of the third batch.
So they just one year senior, but there's been such a tremendous growth in their confidence
and their ability to read and learn by themselves, um, they organized these awareness sessions

(57:40):
for the batch for our students.
And then together with them designed school sessions, uh, how can we have interactive school
sessions?
We also use the web of live activity quite often, which is, I think, is quite common.
It's used in a lot of places, um, using a ball of wool and kids standing in a circle.
In each one of them is given a little chit and it says who they are.

(58:03):
So someone is, you know, birds, or represents birds, somebody is the forest, someone is, um,
the air, someone is the soil, then you have animals, human beings, uh, all of them have
a role to play.
And then we start reading out, you know, uh, you know, how are they related?
So they say that, okay, human beings eat crops and grow crops.

(58:26):
So humans are connected to the farms.
Um, and then birds also eat from the farm.
So birds are also connected.
So we keep passing around this ball of wool until it, there's a web of sorts that, that's
connecting the entire group.
Um, then we start reading out a story of the story of how things started going wrong.

(58:47):
And then we say, who does it affect?
And, and then we say, okay, you know, because of this, or, um, we started using pesticides
in our fields and it started affecting the bees.
So now the bees will, will kind of sit down, the bees are connected to plants and to
colon.
So, um, automatically there's a tug on that, that string that's connecting them.

(59:13):
And very soon the entire group is like, ma'am, it's hurting, you know, it's hurting and
we're like, this is what's happening to the earth.
I mean, yeah, of course we don't let them suffer in pain.
We, we wrap it around twice or thrice so you can loosen it.
Um, but, uh, yeah, this is one great way to show them how the earth is connected and how,

(59:35):
you know, changes in one part have repercussions on other beings, on other parts of the earth
and other systems.
So, yeah, that's, I think this is one of my favorite activities because it really sends the message
home.
So this is also, was also a testing ground, went to around eight schools, they did these
sessions.
Um, we try to learn from them and we also realize that things like, you know, they know the

(59:58):
terms, they have all the, they know what is atmosphere, they know what is climate, they
know what is weather, it's all by hearted from their textbooks.
They know it in that sense.
But that's why it's all big abstract, not relatable.
Yeah, it's definitely not relatable.
But more than that, it's because the style of learning here is just go by hearted, come

(01:00:22):
for the exam, retain it long enough to write it in the paper after that nobody really
cares.
So, they're not able to connect two things because they've just by hearted them and how
to connect them that we are finding that to be the difficulty and that's when we realize
that maybe we need to take a step back and do more basic stuff or actually, we'll be starting

(01:00:42):
with, you know, basic concepts and geography if we want to do this long term with any school.
And right now we don't have the funding to do it.
I would love it if we could, you know, test this in five or six schools.
But as of now, we don't and not just test this, but test behavior change.
And we, you know, talk to these kids and make them and raise awareness in a way that they

(01:01:09):
are not just ordering online like crazy tomorrow.
Every time they have a bit of spare money, that they're not like, oh, I need new clothes.
Oh, I need clothes in this color.
I need to have this because someone else has it.
So is there a way to create that actual change here because we are living in an area where

(01:01:29):
people are so frugal that their homes and their finances would not rock during the time
of coronavirus.
In fact, they were investing money in cows, in farming despite the main working member
of the house having lost their job.
In many cases, I'm not, I wouldn't generalize it, but in a lot of cases.

(01:01:52):
So where you come from a community that is great at being frugal, but suddenly you're,
you know, this dazzling possibility that you could have it all and it's available at the
touch of a button, is there a way to work on that as well?
Because you can only imagine that with India's population, if everybody started consuming

(01:02:15):
like that, what kind of a soup the whole world could be in.
And I'm not just putting this resting the squarely on our shoulders only, but yeah, it could
be devastating even for India because can we really produce that much and that's what
cost, but that's a different conversation.
So those are conversations we would like to get into, but do them in a way that is not

(01:02:38):
like no.
Humans, you people are bad.
We're trying our way around that.
Right now we did awareness sessions with middle schoolers.
We're organizing a forest festival to try and bring people back, you know, to the forest,
especially the current generation, which has not been into a few as not really been into
farming.

(01:02:58):
They've not been encouraged to farm or as a result, they're not close to forest either.
So they're not close to the end, their natural environment.
So as a path back is there things like this that we can do?
So we're trying that.
We're also, we had fixed meetings with a couple of government partners so far.

(01:03:21):
We've only been able to meet with the forest department and there was a lot of great learning
there about forests and how they are managed and a sadly, like quite a rude awakening that
here nothing really is happening on the ground about climate change actually speaking or nothing
is happening from that perspective.
They may be growing forests and maintaining them to an extent, but not knowing what is the

(01:03:47):
requirement, what is the carbon sink that we have committed to developing?
What is, you know, things like carbon neutrality?
What is the role of forest?
What are the role of fairies trees?
What is the action plan actually comprise of?
Well, it's been written, you know, to be the forest department as the nodal agency, but

(01:04:10):
we are realizing that that's not really playing out on ground.
So what now?
You know?
And that's a big question for us as youth, as residents of this place in an area that is
highly vulnerable to climate change and the impacts of it, what is our role now?
What do we do?

(01:04:31):
So yeah, I think those are the questions that lie ahead of us and there is some indication
that there is interest on part of the youth.
I think without this program happening, we probably would not get to, to see or hear
what I am about to tell you, we had a career session recently and we asked youth to kind of

(01:04:53):
narrow down, we gave them a whole lot of options and did a lot of like, what do I like,
what do I not like, what kind of person am I?
A lot of those kind of exercises to try and pick out six careers each person that they
would be interested to explore.
And we had at least in a group of 15 youth, we had five that, you know, one of their

(01:05:15):
choices was social worker.
We have a bunch of them who want to be primary school teachers.
We have people that are two of them that are very interested in leaning towards green businesses
actually in their top three options.
And you know, that is where I say that makes the difference.
If you are providing the right kind of education, then you're going to get the kind of result

(01:05:41):
that could, that demonstrates that a better world is possible, you know, slowly but is
possible.
So I think we need more health, I'll know, or similar.
Through your journey, we can see that youth when they are given those opportunities to
explore, to really understand the various ways that they can contribute, they actually are

(01:06:06):
interested in contributing.
And also many of the efforts which you are doing, it shows that, okay, there is a way to actually
retain the youth within their village itself to help contribute to their own society, their
own people, their own environment, rather than migrating towards some kind of idea of

(01:06:32):
development, which may or may not work for them.
So it might be for some people, but it may not be for everyone.
It shows the possibilities that exist and how we can strive towards them if only a given
that chance to explore.
There are a lot of challenges that are there.

(01:06:54):
So how do you actually keep the inner child alive in all this, like climate change or
this issue, that issue, solve of that, it just maybe can pull us down, but then we think
about all the problems that we face, but then how can we navigate all of that and stay
centered, stay sane and also continue contributing towards them, raising our voice for truth and

(01:07:21):
also going together as a community and keeping that inner child alive.
That sense of wonder, that sense of curiosity, that excitement, that exploration.
I want to answer this by, by, with the disclaimer that I am not the poster girl for keeping
the child alive, or in a case, I'm really not.

(01:07:46):
I'm, sometimes I find that I'm so boring, like I'm constantly muddled in the details and
I struggle with it myself.
Very decent revelation is that, you know, I have been, you know, getting therapy to help
with my anxiety and my therapist asked me to write down a list of every tiny achievement

(01:08:10):
in big one that I could think of for the entirety of my life.
I got bored into like one and a half page.
I'm sure that there's not bragging, it's that everybody has a lot of achievements.
I'm sure we can all fill up at these five pages of a book.
And then she asked me to pick five to celebrate and my face was one of horror, celebrate

(01:08:35):
how, why, how there's so much more to be done.
And I guess that's how I've like, it's, the reasons are like way deported in things like
my upbringing or, you know, just who I am as a person.
Well, it was so hard for me to do that, you know, and that's who I am.

(01:09:02):
How do you do it?
Look to stay sane because climate changed really, really bothered me at one point.
I think it bothered me until the time I realized that I'll probably be dead before the worst
of course, stuff happens.
And I actually took a course in climate psychology to try and, you know, work through the anxiety

(01:09:25):
with a professional and a group of people, it was a group course.
I tried that.
It helped, it helped actually quite at a deeper level and just like the results showed.
But what do I do?
I think living in the mountains is something that has helped me in that sense.

(01:09:46):
Otherwise, I probably would have been someone that went straight from the office to home
to the office again the next day and occasionally went out with friends.
I think here I like dabbling in mud.
So I like doing a bit of farming when I get a chance.
I love spending time with the farm animals.

(01:10:06):
Like, we have two cows and two dogs right now.
So I like playing with them.
I've built it into my routine a little bit of spending time with them.
He's not feeding the dogs or running around with them, you know, just a leechless walk in

(01:10:27):
the mountains.
I like staying out at night on my balcony despite how cold it is with a torch and looking
out for leopards.
I saw one, I've seen only one in the five years I've been here very recently just this week.
I really, really stoked about it, very excited.

(01:10:50):
I like walking through the forest.
Sometimes I'll collect leaves that are fallen and then put them into books and then I'll
have to go back to them and see, you know, how they're shaping up later, how they look.
I think a lot of my inner child finds this space to play in nature.

(01:11:10):
That's how I am.
When I'm around people, I'm a bit more serious, but when I'm in nature, I get to just be
like, "Age is forgotten.
This is a sense of living and nothing else matters."
Yeah, so that's something I like, but I'm definitely the wrong person for this question.

(01:11:32):
I'm working on it.
I'm trying.
Because I work with you, then that's, you know, that's, I know it doesn't sound quite right.
I work with you.
I work with younger people.
It keeps me young.
It does.
I'm not really great at working with children.
I don't feel like I have the energy for children.

(01:11:55):
I'm a bit more focused and let's get something done.
I'm really goal oriented and that makes it easier for me to work with you, but I like, I like
sometimes letting go and just fooling around with them, taking silly photographs or, you know,
I used to really go at them hard for how many selfies they used to click on my students.

(01:12:19):
And then after some time, I was like, you know, what, let it go.
Let's click some with them.
Because I think giving in and submitting to, yeah, to their age and to where they are at in
life and to who they are in the world, the way it is currently, sometimes just letting
it be.

(01:12:42):
I'm hoping that's also a mark of being a child, you know, when you submit to your surroundings
and to whatever the world is, I'm hoping that qualifies.
That's me trying.
That's love.
And then you're really actually keeping that alive and you're right in nature, we feel liberated
in a way because the open landscape and in nature, everyone, every being is just existing.

(01:13:09):
They're doing their own part and they all are doing things together as well in nature.
So everything is free and as well as they are serving their own purpose in a way.
So in nature, we can find a lot of joy and that sense of play as well, even in childhood,

(01:13:34):
maybe when we used to climb trees or just have fruits.
So all of that, those little joys are where we can, you know, reconnect back to the simple
things in life that really matter.
And also the thing about the, you know, the gloom and doom and doom of the problems that

(01:14:00):
we are faced with today.
So maybe in a way, that sense of community as you are talking about that, I remember you
were saying that at Hyjali, you just sit together and have a safe space for sharing.
So those kind of circles where you can just share and be together, hold space for each other

(01:14:25):
and whether it's grief, whether it's joy, whether it's conversation, whether it's learning,
so doing things together as a community, going on that journey together so that can do
something really special for people.
Yeah.
What are the ways of people listening to your story?

(01:14:49):
What are the ways in which they can contribute to your cause in some way?
Right from the smallest support, those large of support to a deeper commitment.
So what are the various ranges in which people can support your cause?
Okay.
And be a part of it.
So one way that of course is for people to, you know, come join us.

(01:15:18):
And when I say join us, there's like, this date is quite wide open in how they could draw
their journey with us.
People wanting to volunteer, although we prefer having volunteers for at least two months
at a time because it takes a while to find ones varying around the mountains.

(01:15:38):
If you're coming here on ground, there's also opportunities to volunteer online if we have
the requirement and time and space to coordinate with people.
We do require more and more people talking about the kind of work they do and more exposure
to different kinds of careers, especially in the alternative field, especially in the

(01:16:00):
development sector or green jobs, social enterprises, people running them, people working at them,
people working in renewable energy, or any kind of green venture or something that benefits
society in a way.
So that's something that we would love to have.

(01:16:20):
I'd like to think that in some way all of us who are even working at her Jalo make some
financial contribution to the place.
Sometimes it's in terms of the days we put in overtime work.
Sometimes we're literally buying little things that are needed or just putting money back
in or just being patient for the funding to roll around and for us to get paid our salaries.

(01:16:48):
And anybody who comes in as a financial contributor to Jalo is for us, it's not just that.
We hand-write letters to our donors ever so often.
We pick herbs for them and sundry them ourselves, package it and send it to them.
We really see them as people that are part of the community, people that we care for.

(01:17:13):
We pray for them during the graph.
We do very intimate calls with our donors.
We ask them to sometimes come in and share a talent, teach us a song or something like that.
So it's not just about, I mean, it's okay if someone doesn't have the time and they would
just like, here's my money, use it well.

(01:17:36):
We can do that.
Yes.
It would be much nicer if you got to know us and if we could get to know you.
And if this could be that one space where you have an alternate family, you have a different
family, just a family of people that are fun and there's so much of lessons and so many

(01:17:56):
things that people can also learn from the youth here, from the way people in the mountains
live.
I think Champagrath has a lot to teach people.
So it's also about what we can give to people.
So if somebody is interested and they want to learn more, they want to explore, we try
and create a space where that can happen for them.

(01:18:17):
So yes, we take volunteers, we take interns, we are very happy to work with people who,
you know, want to financially contribute or connect us to people in some way.
One of the things that we particularly struggle with is that I'm the only person right now
on the team who can do things like write proposals or send them off, etc.

(01:18:41):
I get a bit of help from Manvindra, my husband.
But he's also really busy.
So people with professional skills that can come and help us raise that little funding
that we need to keep going.
That would be really nice.
Or if there's somebody out there that knows someone, that knows someone who runs a company,
even if it's a small company, if you know someone who is a business owner and that business

(01:19:05):
can give a contribution, however small, maybe they can do like, you know, I don't know,
200, 500, a thousand rupees a month.
But if that's it, we want to be connected, yes, because we feel like there is so much more
that we can do mutually.
So yeah, those are some of the things that we have in mind.

(01:19:25):
So the way people can come aboard.
That's lovely.
And keeping that circle of sharing open where we share our time with each other, we share
our learnings and any kind of resources.
It's beyond money and also keeping that relationship intact.

(01:19:45):
And I saw that in our, I think you had a call with people in interaction with the fellows,
where the fellows were sharing their journey and the supporters were also invited to be
a part of it.
And it was really a heartwarming connection to see how people can share space with each other

(01:20:08):
and share that journey with each other.
So that sharing was really heartwarming.
Thank you.
So my best wishes to you.
Thank you so much.
This is Janki Di.
This is our, especially, Makaan Maalkin.
We are going there for some five years since we have come to Champawat.

(01:20:29):
But now, you are a friend.
Yeah.
It's a very unusual friendship.

(01:20:51):

(01:21:12):

(01:21:34):

(01:22:00):

(01:22:22):

(01:22:44):

(01:23:06):

(01:23:28):

(01:23:50):

What are your ideas, your thoughts,
on the things we discussed?
I'd love to know what you think in the comments below.
Let's have a conversation.
This is GoGreenGuru of Sustainability in Action.
And this is me, Ananya, signing off.

(01:24:12):
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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Empowering youth towards active citizenship | Story of HaiJalo | Bombil Ruth