STH Activities: Participating in Darjeeling Himalaya Initiative's 'Call of the Mountains' event :30May2022

SaveTheHills has long been a member of the Integrated Mountain Initiative (IMI) and is a member of the state chapter of IMI which is the Darjeeling Himalaya Initiative (DHI). We have participated in a number of events over the years related to (mainly) environmental issues of the Himalayas and yesterday we took part in the 'Call of the Mountains' (CoMs)event at Little Tibet hotel in Darjeeling.
Our theme for CoMs anchored around food and was ‘Changing food and food systems of the Darjeeling Himalayas’ and I can’t tell you how relevant this topic is.
Every time I sit down for a meal with my 6 yr.old granddaughter, I am painfully reminded how the frontal assault by multinational food companies have altered our food habits in the mountains. She steadfastly refuses to eat any wholesome home food and is almost addicted to packaged foods and cereals. Not only are these foods poor substitutes for freshly cooked home food, they also generate nightmarish quantities of plastic waste.
CoMs was attended by around 35-40 people including some from the Darjeeling Municipality, SHGs, Homestay organizers, and NGOs

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling Sikkim Himalaya

STH activities in the Darjeeling Himalaya Initiative (DHI) : Earth Day (22Apr2021) Workshop on 'Women and Disasters'

The Sustainable Mountain Development Summit (SMDS) is an annual event of the Integrated Mountain Initiative (IMI) which is a pan Himalayan body comprising of Civil Society organizations and individuals from across the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR). The SMDS is also a flagship program of the IMI and is held in different states of the IHR each year.

The summit in 2021 will be held in the Darjeeling/ Kalimpong districts of W Bengal and Darjeeling Himalaya Initiative (DHI) will be hosting the event. SaveTheHills, is a part of DHI.
On 25Feb2021, IMI President, Mr PD Rai was with us in a brief ceremony (followed by a press release and lunch) held at Aapas Residency, Kalimpong where he formally handed over the SMDS Baton from Uttarakhand (2020 host of the event) to Darjeeling/Kalimpong. I accepted the baton as President of the Darjeeling Himalaya Initiative (DHI), which is the state chapter for West Bengal.

DHI, as a run up to the final program (SMDS -X) will be hosting a few smaller programs in the course of the year and the first such one we hosted was on Earth Day (22Apr2021)
Earth Day (22April2021)
We decided to hold an in person meeting on Earth Day at the Rotary Centre, Kalimpong and Ms R Vimala (IAS) District Magistrate of Kalimpong was our Chief Guest. Our theme was 'Women and Disasters'

What was specially apt was that all our speakers for the program were women and from our own region and not surprisingly most of the audience were also women.

In addtion to the above, we featured Ms Ahana Gurung's 15 min video on mainly landslide disasters and their impact on women and Ms Jyotsna Sitling (IFS)  - CPCCF, Uttarakhand and Mr PD Rai (President, IMI) spoke to the audience via video taped messages.

The entire almost 3 hour event was live streamed on the Kalimpong TV Face Book channel and was seen by a large audience.

DHI thanks Rotary Club of Kalimpong, KaNGON (Kalimpong NGO Network) and KTv for their support and help

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling-Kalimpong HImalaya

STH activities: Participating in IMI's Webinar on Current Disaster Discourse and Lessons from Chamoli (27Mar2021)

 IMI's (https://inmi.in/) 3 hr webinar on Lesson's from the recent Chamoli disaster in Uttarakhand was held online on 27Mar2021 with experts from Uttarakhand (Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology) as well as Dr Saibal Ghosh from GSI's GHRM, talking about the disaster.
STH helped pool in the resource persons as well as participated - talking about the need to standardize Landslide Reporting in the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) using the Landslip Reporting form  and the Landslide Reporting App developed by Project Landslip .
Dr KR Vishwanathan, representative of Practical Action (India) spoke at length about the landslide reporting tools.

The webinar was attended by representatives of the State Disaster Management Authorities of Uttarakhand and Sikkim as well as IMI representatives from across the IHR.

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya

An event of NOTE : Legislator's dialogue on Climate Change (02-4Oct2019) at Kalimpong

STH is a part of the Darjeeling Himalaya Initiative (DHI). Read more about Integrated Mountain Initiative
here

Praful Rao,
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya