SaveTheHills(STH) is a group of concerned citizens who are raising awareness about landslides in Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya.
Many landslides are the direct or indirect result of human interference and preventable if sufficient care is taken.
As such, unless we begin a comprehensive and sustained program towards landslide management, prevention and mitigation, the consequences of ignoring years of human callousness will, in the future be devastating.
Generating awareness on disaster risk especially with rural people has always been our forte and yesterday we had the opportunity to talk with 70 odd people mainly from Sindebong and Bhalukhop bustee (village) areas.
Among them were many of the newly elected gram panchayat members, members of the samaj (community), ASHA workers and SHG heads of the 2 villages. I had shared the 3 hour event with Ms Kaveri Subba, BDMO ( Block Disaster Management Officer) of Kalimpong Block -1 (seated with me in front) and the workshop was moderated and organized by Ms Aachal Tamang (extreme left), member of both SaveTheHills and Anugyglaya DDSSS.
Praful Rao Kalimpong district Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya savethehills@gmail.com savethehills.blogspot.com
In Dec 2022, India assumed the Presidency of G20 which is a group of 20 nations which have come together to address some of the major issues of the world. In this C20 or Civil 20 is one of the many engagement groups which will forward its policy recommendations later in the year to the G20 group for consideration. What is the C20? Well, C20 provides a platform to Civil Society Organizations of countries in the G20 group to voice their perspectives on the many issues in which civil society has a role. In this regard, the Chair of C20 is Amma ((Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi) and a Conclave on 'Sustainable and Resilient Communities' was organized by the Amrita Organization along with the Govt of Sikkim on the 29/30April at Chintan Bhavan in Gangtok, SIkkim.
Responding to a Call for Submissions by the C20 group, STH submitted a 3 slide presentation to the organizers for the Conclave on 'HAZARD ALERTS', a What's App group which STH formed 6 years ago in order to disseminate hazard warnings and information to the Grass Roots in the Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya
We also submitted a short video on 'HAZARD ALERTS'
I am glad to inform you that our submission was selected as one of the 20 BEST PRACTICES(Udaharans) to be submitted to the G20 later this year for consideration and I had the privilege of speaking at briefly about 'Hazard Alerts' yesterday at the Chintan Bhavan.
Praful Rao Kalimpong district Darjeeling- Sikkim Himalaya savethehills@gmail.com 9475033744
