Destination Background Information
CERES Global organises visits to three organisations in three different parts of India. The host organisations are all exceptional in the community development and/or environmental work they do. The organisations are described below – with some information about the breadth of work they do.
Pitchandikulum Forest – Auroville, Tamil Nadu, South India
Satpuda Vikas Mandal – Pal, Maharasthra, Central India
Uttarakhand Environment Education Centre – Almora, Uttaranchel, India
Pitchandikulum Forest – Auroville, Tamil Nadu, South India
About the Host Organisation
Pitchandikulum Forest is one of the small communities within the larger Auroville international community. Pitchandikulum Forest has worked since 1973 bringing back the indigenous Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest to the Auroville area – and throughout the state of Tamil Nadu. It has transformed its own 70 acre site into a lush forest ecosystem of over 800 plants - including many medicinal plants used by traditional healers. In recent times Pitchanikulum Forest has become involved in community outreach work in about 25 villages working on revegetation work – but also environmental education in schools, women's groups, enterprise creation, and general village development.
About the location
Pitchandikulum is in the tropical south of India – only 5 km from the coastal town of Pondicherry – 3 hours drive south of Chennai.
Satpuda Vikas Mandal – Pal, Maharasthra, Central India
About the host Organisation
Satpuda Vikas Mandal is a community organisation devoted to working with tribal groups in the remote Satpuda ranges surrounding the village of Pal. The organisation was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi – who called on Indian officials working for the British to leave their jobs and work for the poorest of the poor. An Indian Police Officer who lived in a village on the plains below the Satpuda ranges – took up Gandhi's call – left his well paid job – and began working with tribal groups around Pal. After he was murdered by money lenders whose corrupt practices he opposed, his son, who was at university at the time, took up his father's work and set up the organisation Satpuda Vikas Mandal in Pal. The main foci of Satpuda Vikas Mandal are agriculture and education – but they also work on broad community development, women's groups, health issues, and environmental projects. The organisation operates a farm on about 30 acres where they develop and implement new techniques in water harvesting and storage, irrigation, new varieties of crops, and organic farming techniques. Satpuda Vikas Mandal manages six schools in Pal and surrounding villages. All schools have hostels so that students from remote villages don't have to travel each day. Roads are generally very poor and washed out during monsoon rains.
About the location
Pal is a village of about 5,000 people nestled in the Satpuda Ranges which run along the border of the states of Maharashtra and Madya Pradesh. Pal used to be used as a hill station by Maharajas travelling in elephant convoys from Delhi to Mumbai. There are remnants of elephant stables in the grounds of the Pal Muslim temple. Three tribal groups inhabit the hills surrounding Pal – the Banjaras, Tadavis, and Powarah. Each group has its own distinct dress, customs, marriage arrangements, ownership and gender practices. Some are Hindu, some Muslim, possibly blended with their ancient traditional religious practices. To get to Pal the CERES Global group takes a 10 hour overnight train trip from Mumbai to Bhusaval. From there it is another 3 hours by jeep to Pal.
The Satpuda Ranges were once a dense forest with monkeys, deer, tigers and panthers. Today only scattered trees remain in most parts – the trees having been cut for firewood for cooking or heating. This is exacerbated by the increasing population and the clearing of land to grow additional food. These days one sometimes sees monkeys in the hills – and very rarely a panther – but animal life has largely disappeared.
Uttarakhand Environment Education Centre – Almora, Uttaranchel, India
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About the host Organisation
Uttarakhand Environmental Education Centre (UEEC) began its work 30 years ago, developing an environmental education curriculum for Secondary Schools. It produced booklets and trained Teachers in Environmental Education appropriate to life in villages in the foothills of the Himalayas. After successfully introducing environmental education throughout the state of Uttaranchel, the organisations decided to extend its work to adults in the mountain villages. To begin with this provided difficult because for most of the year men had to leave the villages to look for work in the cities. The women were so busy doing the men's work, as well as their own, that they didn't have time to talk to anyone about environmental issues. Over the past 10 years, however, UEEC has developed a very unique and successful approach. They set up Kindergartens (Balwadis in their language) which operated for 4 hours every day. The women loved these – because as well as giving their children a good educational start in life – they also gave the women invaluable free time to go collecting fodder for animals, or water, or do housework, or farm work. When women came to collect their children from the Balwadis – the Kinder Teacher would discuss with the mothers the activities they had been doing with their children – then sit down with the women and talk to them about their local village and environmental issues. These gatherings have become very empowering for women on many levels – personally, politically, economically and environmentally.
About the location
Almora is in the foothills of the Himalayas – in the very northern Indian state of Uttaranchel (previously called Uttarakhand). It is reached by catching an overnight train from Delhi – then a jeep for about 3 hours – winding through valleys and mountain passes – catching the occasional glimpse of the spectacular snow capped peaks of the Himalayas. Farms in these areas are either deep down in river valleys – or etched into the terraced hillsides. Most farming is organic – because chemicals and fertilisers never really reached these remote parts of India. Crops are fertislised with a combination of ash from fires, cow manure, and waste stubble from crops. One of the major environmental issues in the area arises from British occupations times – when the British destroyed much of the native vegetation in the mountains, replacing it with pine trees to make tea chest for exporting their tea back to England. As a result very little indigenous flora and fauna remains. This is particularly important as the indigenous vegetation contained plants useful for animal fodder, as well as effective water retention properties in the leaf litter that created a thick humus soil. With the change to pine plantations many of the natural springs have now dried up.