Over the past two months, the farm team has put in tremendous effort to develop the farm, despite prolonged rainy days. The team dedicated themselves to cutting the grass, chopping it into small pieces and then mulching all the plants to protect them from the heavy rain washing all the soil from around them. Their dedication has brought visible results, with crops like ladyfinger, long beans, kidney beans, pumpkin, bitter gourd, turmeric, and ginger showing better-than-usual growth. Every Friday, Vijay and Ankush visit the farm with a chart to monitor and analyse the plant performance. The farm team has shown great enthusiasm for this process, maintaining detailed records in their diaries, which greatly aids in preparing reports and assessment for future planting.

Last week it was the boys turn to be invited to attend workshops for adolescents. Rahul and Vijay conducted one follow up and two new workshops engaging 52 boys between 13 and 19 years only. The follow up group was of local boys who Ankush is encouraging to revive the Rakkar youth club. The two new groups came from a number of villages served by our single women activists who worked very hard to motivate the boys to come. By the end they all felt grateful to have had to opportunity to ask questions and learn about topics from human rights to gender and sexuality in a way that would positively impact their outlook on life.

The computer centre at Nishtha is a refuge for children after school on rainy days.

The school holidays are a perfect time to pack in Wenlido and adolescent girls trainings but it has been an exhausting time for Ravindra who has conducted six trainings in the past three weeks. However, around 80 girls from the villages have gained enormous confidence and knowledge by attending these sessions.

On the occasion of International Widows Day, 119 women took part in a rally organized by the single Women in Dharamsala Their aim was to raise awareness about the challenges faced by widows and single women and to submit a letter to the District Commissioner (DC) seeking immediate attention to their concerns. These include an increase in pensions for widows, swift implementation of Government schemes for the welfare single women’s families, inclusion of Single Women in the BPL (Below Poverty Line) Category, elimination of caste certificate requirement for accessing welfare schemes and simplification of documentation procedures which are very difficult for most poor, vulnerable women to submit. They also ask for recognition of the very diverse needs and situations of widowed and abandoned women who cannot be regarded as a homogenous group as they have different needs based on age, location, health, and family responsibilities. The women marched carrying pink banners, slogans and bags from the Post Office to the DCs office where seven individual applications were submitted to the DC.

What better to do on the farm in this very heavy monsoon than to make nettle compost tea. Rich in nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, iron, calcium and magnesium, it will add greatly to the fertility of our soil.

Last week we held the first of three 3-day Wenlido workshops run by Ravindra and Deepa. This one was attended by 15 of the college students Nishtha sponsors, nine of whom were new applicants for this years program. They work hard during these three days with sessions continuing up to 8.0 in the evening and leave feeling confident and with a good understanding of their right to control their lives.

We are very grateful to Ishita Gupta who joined us as a volunteer to prepare the proposal for a new program to introduce skill centres into some of the remote villages. She happily visited the villages, interacted with the women and worked with our staff to produce a power point presentation and community assessment which shows the importance of this project.

On environment day our students and children marched, cleaning up the sides of the road and the streams from the playground and school up beyond the Nag Mandir collecting 14 sacks of garbage on the way. They then held a rally at outside the anganwari where a group of girls from Tillu village performed a skit, Mohinder gave a talk and Vijay Bhadwaj and our sponsorship students sang the environment song reminding everyone not to carelessly throw their garbage.

Last month, Ravindra and Vijay participated in a life skill workshop which took place in in Gujarat organized by Saishav NGO. On their return, they organized a workshop to talk about the WHO 10 core life skills for the Nishtha sponsorship students so that they could exercise and put into practice what they had learned while it was all fresh in their minds. The students found it very interesting and helpful saying: “This workshop gave us many new things to think about such as we should think more about ourselves because if we are not happy how can we do something which makes other happy” and “We are usually quick to judge others instead of thinking why he/she did this, considering the reason behind the action.”