Two very interesting experiences today. Headed out in the morning to the offices of the Snow Leapord Conservancy. Learnt some amaziong stuff about how to promote conservation through economic development. They’ve successfully setup homestays, where tourists can stay in the homes of local villagers and go trekking. Through this, the local villagers earn substantial income directly (instead of the organized tour operators), and at the same time reduce their dependence on livestock for their livelihood. Additionally, they learn about conservation and the environment and its importance- after all, the toursits come to see the wildlife and nature, and that’s what provides the locals with livelihood.
Additionally, the group has several unique educational programs as well, and it was really nice learning about that.
Rachel, a junior from Skidmore College in NY who was also staying at the Oriental Guest House and doing an independent study, joined me on my visits today after over-hearing a conversation i was having at dinner last night.
After the Snow Leopard place, we headed to Chushot, a small village about 15kms from Leh, where Namgyal had their hostel. It was located in a wide open area, with nothing but mountains around. The hostel, and the adjoining government school have a really unique approach to handling disabled children. At the hostel, disabled children mingled freely with regular children, as at the government school. You could see the benefits of this in the way the children interacted with each other and with outsiders such as us. It also gave a lot of confidence to the disabled chidlren, one of whom was the top student in the entire village!
The children were extremely friendly and playful, and included us in whatever activities they were doing. We also got a chance to take a look at their text books, which had been published by SECMOL, a local agency that made text-books catering more to the local children, and you could see how useful that was.
Over here you could see NGO’s working closely with the government, and the government supporting the various efforts, In fact, the government is looking to take over the hostel that Namgyal currently runs. Its just fascinating seeing all this at work, and the efforts put in by the project co-ordinators Madhura, Vidhya, Sujatha and Madhu- its really commendable, and was really educational for me to see first-hand what they have achieved and are working on.
I have a bunch of really nice pictures that I took today which I shall post when I get back to Delhi and greater band-width.