Nishtha Single Women’s team worked very hard to organise three meetings this month which each brought together over 60 women from the different areas in which they work. The meeting gives isolated village women the opportunity to meet health, welfare department and legal officers to guide them how to seek any help they require. The Nishtha team talked about the services Nishtha offers and provided back up organisation and cooked lunch for everyone. In Rait, Dr. Shreya, Mohinder, Vijay and Ravindra stepped in when the government officials were unable to attend at the last minute due to a government rally and held a very interesting and productive meeting.

The second of our village cluster meetings to discuss the issues of waste management with the community was held last Wednesday. It was a highly participatory event with people putting forward their ideas and discussing the problems related to the amount of plastic and other waste being produced in the village. Everyone agreed that each family should be responsible for segregating their waste and disposing of it appropriately.

Launching our winter program of environment awareness meetings, over 60 local people attended the cluster meeting held at Nag Mandir last week. Mohinder discussed the current situation regarding waste management in the area and we committed to continuing our work collecting segregated plastic waste. The children performed a short play about what to do with different kinds of waste and Vijay Bhadwaj sang our garbage song along with the children and the team. Everyone enjoyed eating samosas and dancing!

Nishtha Community Centre hosted a three-day gender training for our sponsorship students. Because they are a group who have already got to know each other well they responded admirably to trainers Maju, Ravindra and Vijay and were able to cover in depth a number of very important topics related to their gender identity, the demands of society and understanding what are unhealthy friendships and the dangers of social media. The group gave great feedback and really appreciated having a free space to talk about the issues that really concern them.

An essential ingredient of good compost is farmyard manure. Our staff and even the group of students with us for a gender training all helped to collect sacks of it from the Tapowan farm and carry it to the Nishtha farm for the newly set up compost bins. Thank you everyone for your hard work!

Nishtha tuition classes have started with children from the local government school happily sitting with our two student teachers to help them with their studies. This year Kaniksha is joined by Sapna who is interning with us from the Sajhe Sapne program held at Aaviskhar near Palampur. Sajhe Sapne is a social enterprise providing young women in villages with aspirational career pathways. Both Sapna and Kaniksha have received special training in how to make maths enjoyable for primary school children.

Dr Barbara visits the farm to encourage the farming team and take a look at Ravi’s new composting unit.

We are delighted by the very beautiful rangoils designs painted by the male members of our staff this year. May everyone have a truly peaceful and blessed year ahead. Happy Diwali!

A week spent cleaning painting and polishing leading up to the big day! Finally the rangoli to welcome the goddess into our homes is painted at the threshold of the buildings. Our staff are using only the traditional patterns and colouring materials.