They gave you their smiles – will you help give them light?
AN APPEAL FOR THE SMILING PEOPLE OF JHUNI
Dear
You are one of the many thousands who enjoyed and commented on the wonderful smiles and laughter in my films “Smiles from Off The Road” and “Smiles 3 –Travels With a Hat”, featuring the people of the remote Indian Himalayan village of Jhuni.
I have teamed up with the local NGO ‘Avani’ to give something back to these people and I am writing to ask for your help.
Our first goal is to provide solar lighting and smoke-free cooking stoves for allthe 105 homes in the village. This first phase will cost 1.2 millionRupees ($24,000, £14,500). In line with Avani’s ethos for promoting self-reliance in the communities where they work, families will be expected over time to contribute around 25% of the initial cost into a fund to be used for maintenance and eventual renewal of batteries. The families will be shown how to manufacture their own clay stove, with only the steel chimneys being bought in.
Some villagers are at present too poor to make any payments, however small. Phase 2 of our project will help these people get established with silk production and processing as an additional source of income so they can make their contribution as well as pay for other essentials such as schooling and medical care.
If, like me, you feel gratitude for their smiles, I invite you to read on – below are details on how you can help and lots more information about Jhuni and the project. I personally guarantee that ALL donations will go direct to Jhuni c/o Avani
Warm wishes
Chinmaya Dunster
- WHY I CARE
- AN APPEAL FOR THE SAKE OF THE PEOPLE OF JHUNI
- AN APPEAL FOR THE SAKE OF THE ENVIRONMENT OF THE HIMALAYAS
- WHAT JHUNI NEEDS
- OUR PROPOSAL FOR JHUNI
- HOW YOU CAN DONATE
- BACKGROUND: WHERE IS JHUNI? WHO ARE JHUNI’S PEOPLE? etc
1. WHY I CARE
Jhuni’s people found a place in my heart after I met villager Khim Singh Danu last year while I was trekking in a neighbouring valley. His excellent English (largely self-taught), openness to new ideas, and capacity for endless hard work so impressed me that I immediately accepted his invitation to come to his little-visited village.
When I did, as anyone who has seen “Smiles from Off The Road” and “Smiles 3 –Travels With a Hat” will know, I was greeted by such spontaneous joy, smiles, laughter, song and dance, that I simply fell in love!
2. AN APPEAL FOR THE SAKE OF THE PEOPLE OF JHUNI
A tough life, but still they have time to smile…….
Jhuni is at the end of the path. It is a path so steep that even donkeys can’t manage it – everything is carried by people. It is four hours walk down to the nearest vehicle access point; from there an hour by jeep to reach the nearest doctor, hospital or pharmacy. The nearest town with a relatively well-equipped hospital is a further hour by bus. A sick child, a difficult labour, a persistent fever mean a minimum five to six hour journey over some of the roughest terrain on Earth. During the long winter the village is cut off by deep snow, and during monsoon it is frequently cut off by landslides and swollen rivers.
Jhuni’s younger children have a one-hour walk up a steep path to the bare 2-room primary school every day; those older children lucky enough to go to school undertake a treacherous two-hour walk each way to a neighbouring village.
Once night comes in Jhuni, the people live in darkness, as there is no electricity supply. Children must do their homework by flashlight if they can afford the batteries. Activities that might earn people a few extra rupees must stop until daylight returns.
Jhuni’s homes are full of smoke from cooking on wood-burning open fireplaces, creating unpleasant and dangerous conditions. It is not possible to escape the smoke: kitchen, living and sleeping area are a single room. In the harsh cold and snows of winter, when schools are closed and the fields idle, no-one goes outside at all except for the call of nature, or to fetch more wood for the fire. (The World Health Organisation estimates that 1.5 million people die every year from the pollution caused by indoor cooking stoves).
Jhuni’s women and girls are at the hard end of a cultural practice that will only be changed by education. They are expected to do more than their share of the work, and are fed less than their share of the best food. They are often run-down and anaemic and their children’s health is weakened as a result.
3. AN APPEAL FOR THE SAKE OF THE ENVIRONMENT OF THE HIMALAYAS
One of the last true wildernesses left on Earth………
Jhuni lies at the edge of Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve, a UN-recognised biodiversity hotspot of international importance. While the villagers have traditionally used the forests and pastures of this high Himalayan range in sustainable ways, the past two decades have seen their increasing involvement with the cash economy of the plains. The benefits –schooling and medical care – cost them money, and cash is hard to come by. The first result of this, twenty years ago, was the virtual extinction of the protected musk deer (its musk pod used by the European perfume industry) by poaching.
In the last ten years thousands of villagers from all over the area have pursued an intensive hunt for Cordyseps sinensis (a strange caterpillar/fungus co-species) that occurs below ground in the high pastures and is valued by the Chinese for its supposedly aphrodisiac properties. The villagers’ presence in this fragile ecological zone, disturbing the thin soils and burning whatever bushes can be found to cook and keep warm with, has had serious environmental consequences. Needless to say over-harvesting has resulted in ever-diminishing returns, until today most Jhuni villagers say that it is no longer worth the effort.
This leaves them with a final option to raise cash locally: growing cannabis. While this native plant has traditionally been used by them as a minor part of their diet and medicine, it is of course illegal, and brings them into contact with some of the least desirable elements of the plains economy. Every field planted with cannabis is a field less for food growing, and this inevitably increases the villages demand for edible wild species from the Reserve.
4. WHAT JHUNI NEEDS
- solar electric light. The children’s schoolwork will benefit most from it, but everybody enjoys being able to see each other in the evening, don’t they?
- smoke free stoves. Many health issues will be solved overnight from their introduction, plus who wants to cough the whole night?
- alternative livelihoods. The legal ways to earn cash from harvesting wild animals and plants are now exhausted. No one in Jhuni actually likes the illegal ways - they’ll give them up at the drop of a hat if given the chance!
- two solar panels to run 2 laptop computers(the latter already donated), one at the school, the other in a room within the village. Although these computers will mainly be used for off-line learning through CD-ROM and videos, there are one or two places near the village where a weak mobile phone connection sometimes allows a slow connection to the internet. These computers will literally be an opening into a wider world.
5. OUR PROPOSAL FOR JHUNI
PHASE 1
- Provide 105 families each with a system of 15 W solar power and 20 AH tubular batteries with all accessories and two lights
Cost per family 8,500 Rupees;
Total cost892,500 Rupees - Transportation up to roadhead at Song (three trips)
(Families to bear the cost of transporting the equipment from Song to Jhuni).
Total cost20,000 Rupees - Installation of solar lighting
Cost per family 500 Rupees
Total Cost 52,500 Rupees - Maintenance Training for two Jhuni villagers at Avani: three months including boarding and lodging.
Total cost 40,000 Rupees - Provide steel piping for cooking stove chimneys. (Families will construct stoves from local clay, after training).
Cost per family 500 Rupees
Total cost52,500 Rupees - Set up bank account with villagers elected/nominated by village as signatories. (To safeguard against misappropriation, one representative from Avani will also be a signatory, so that money is never withdrawn without our knowledge). This bank will provide micro-finance so that each family can contribute 2000 Rupees (banked now or via micro-credit) towards battery replacementafter 7 years, plus 30 Rupees per head per month towards a maintenance fund to pay the technicians’ honorarium and other expenses.
This aspect of the project is important to make sure that there is money available after the batteries start to loose their storage capacity, so that the entire investment does not go waste after a couple of years. There will be a differential payment system, depending on the financial situation of each family, but their contributions are essential for the long term sustainability of the project. (Cost covered by Avani) - Two 100 W solar systems for charging two laptop computers– purchase, transportation and installation.
Cost per system 50,000 Rupees
Total cost100,000 Rupees
Phase 1 Total Cost:1,157,500Rupees
US $23,892
UK £14,455
PHASE 2
- Sericulture training.Training, travel (including AVANI support team) and exposure and rearing support for 2 years.
Cost per year 300,000 Rupees
Total cost 600,000 Rupees
This element of the project will be managed under a formal contract so that Jhuni’s people are committed to a programmethat generates self-sufficiency rather than dependence on outside funds. Sericulture involves rearing silk moth cocoons on the leaves of oak trees in the forests. Eventually villagers will be trained in spinning and weaving of silk. Initial return per family involved in the rearing programme is expected to be 5,000 – 10,000 Rupees per annum.
Phase 2 Total Cost:600,000Rupees
US $12,000
UK £7,500
6. HOW YOU CAN DONATE
Donations outside India will be handled by:
Nichola Harrison, 9 Highsett, Cambridge CB2 1NX, UK.
Nichola is the sister of Chinmaya Dunster. She will account fully to Avani for all donations received.
Please email her at to confirm your details and details of the donation you are making.
Via Paypal:
Via Bank transfer:
Bank:Alliance & Leicester plc
Account Name: Nichola Harrison
Account number:16724683
Sort Code:72-50-00
BIC:ALEIGB22
IBAN:GB16 ALEI 7250 0616 7246 83
7. BACKGROUND
Where is Jhuni?
Jhuni lies at an altitude of around 2,500m (9000ft) in the valley of the Sarayu river, District: Bageshwar, State: Uttarakhand, India. The Sarayu is a tributary of the Kali River, which forms the border between India and Western Nepal. Just north of Jhuni the Great Himalaya range rises to the height of 7,800m (25,500ft) at Nanda Devi peak. Beyond is the Tibetan border.
The nearest motorable road is at Song (900m – 3000ft), a four-hour walk from Jhuni. The closest railway at Kathgodon is a ten-hour drive from Song and connects to Delhi in seven hours.
Who lives in Jhuni?
Jhuni’s people depend on subsistence agriculture, growing a wide rangeof food crops naturally without chemicals or pesticides. They keep cows, and sheep, which they pasture in the high mountains in summer. They harvest the surrounding forest for leaves for animal fodder. The main product from their animals is manure, their sole fertilizer for the poor soils of their fields.
The villagers are Hindus, who retain strong local traditions outside the Hindu mainstream, including worship of the goddess Nanda Devi and local village deities associated with springs, notable trees and rocks etc. They are hard working, friendly and great lovers of music and dance, with a store of folk songs and dances. They have no habit of alcohol or drug use, are mainly vegetarian by force of circumstance, and have maintained themselves since pre-history in a harmonious balance with their natural environment. The dense forests around them, the pristine wilderness of the mountains above them, the incredible diversity of bird and animal life amongst which they live, are witness to the depths of their respect for Nature on which they depend so totally.
Who are we?
Avani is a fifteen-year old non-governmental organisation (NGO) specializing in bringing solar power to and developing textile production in remote villages of Uttarakhand, run by two close friends of mine.
You can see my film about them and read more at
I, Chinmaya Dunster, am an internationally known composer of world/new age music. In the past few years I have been trying to express my gratitude to India, my adopted home, by making films about environmental/social justice issues in India. For more information please see