Five kinds of work, one neighbourhood
None of this is complicated. All of it needs someone to keep showing up — with a sapling, a loom, a form, or an afternoon of patience.
Environment & Harela
Plantation drives on Harela, plastic-free campaigns, and saplings put into the hands of schoolchildren and district officials alike.
Harela is Uttarakhand’s festival of new growth, and it is the busiest day in our calendar. Every year we plant with whoever will join us — schoolgirls in uniform, neighbours, teachers, officials — because a sapling planted by someone who then walks past it every day is a sapling that survives.
Alongside the planting we run प्लास्टिक मुक्त अभियान, our plastic-free campaign, taking the message into school halls and community meetings rather than waiting for people to come to us.
- Annual Harela plantation drives with schools across Dehradun
- Plastic-free awareness sessions in halls, schools and colonies
- Saplings presented to district officials, including the District Magistrate
- Follow-up care so that what we plant actually takes root
Women’s Livelihoods & Self-Help Groups
Self-help groups, handloom and craft training, and plain-language guidance on the livelihood schemes women are entitled to but rarely hear about.
Most of the women we work with do not need to be told to work hard. They need a group that meets regularly, a skill that pays, and someone who can explain what the आजीविका मिशन — the National Rural Livelihoods Mission — actually offers them.
So we organise self-help groups, run handloom and craft training, and sit with women through the paperwork. Our work in raising scheme awareness among women’s groups in Dehradun has since been formally recognised.
- Forming and supporting women’s self-help groups (SHGs)
- Handloom, tailoring and craft training that leads to income
- Awareness of livelihood and credit schemes, in plain Hindi
- Help with the forms, the bank visits and the follow-ups
Family Counselling & Reconciliation
Patient mediation in households that have broken down — sitting with both sides for as long as it takes to make a home liveable again.
Some of the quietest work we do never makes it into a photograph. A marriage in trouble, a woman with nowhere to go, elderly parents left behind — these arrive at our door because someone in the neighbourhood knew where to send them.
We listen to both sides, we involve the right authorities when we must, and we keep at it. एक और घर फिर से बसा — another home settled again — is how we mark a good week.
- Mediation and counselling for families in distress
- Support for women facing domestic difficulty
- Coordination with local authorities and helplines where needed
- Follow-up visits long after the immediate crisis has passed
Girls’ Education & School Outreach
Working inside schools — awareness sessions, encouragement to stay enrolled, and giving girls something to lead rather than merely attend.
We go where the girls already are. Our sessions run inside school grounds, and our plantation drives are deliberately student-led, because a girl who has organised something in public once will do it again.
The aim is unglamorous and specific: fewer girls dropping out, more girls finishing.
- Awareness and confidence sessions in Dehradun schools
- Student-led environment and cleanliness drives
- Encouraging girls at risk of dropping out to stay enrolled
- Connecting families to scholarships and school schemes
Community & Culture
Teej, Ambedkar Jayanti, Harela — the festivals that give a neighbourhood a reason to gather, and give us a room full of people to work with.
A community that celebrates together is a community that will show up for each other later. Teej Utsav, Ambedkar Jayanti and the seasonal festivals are how women who would otherwise never leave their lane meet each other.
These gatherings are also, frankly, where our self-help groups get their members and our camps get their volunteers.
- Teej Utsav and seasonal festival celebrations for women
- Ambedkar Jayanti and national observances
- Neighbourhood gatherings that seed self-help groups
- A standing invitation to anyone in Ward 67 and around
Short films from our work
Pick a programme and join it
Every one of these runs on volunteers. Tell us which of the six interests you and we will put you in touch with whoever is leading it this month.