AAGAS: A Community Endeavour for Bio-Conservation and Employment Generation
AAGAS: A Community Endeavour for Bio-Conservation and Employment Generation
Authors : Shailendra Singh Bisht and Surajit Ghosh Dastidar
It was a bright sunny morning on 1st May, 2012. Jagadamba Prasad Maithani (Refer Exhibit 1), Chairperson and Founder of The Alaknanda Ghaati Shilpi Federation (AAGAAS) was nostalgic as he looked at the serene view of the Himalayas from his office window at Pipalkoti, a remote central Himalayan village in the Chamoli District (Uttarakhand) of Northern India. It was exactly 10 years ago that he had founded AAGAAS to work for the socio-economic development of the poor rural mountain communities in Uttarakhand State of Northern India.
Over the years, AAGAAS has been involved in a number of projects (Refer Exhibit 2) and has been active in 54 Gram Panchayats, 800 Schools and 4 Districts in Uttrakhand. The focus areas have been: promotion of ecotourism, hill craft promotion, organic agriculture and nurser raising. Maithani was happy with what AAGAAS had achieved in the last 10 years. However, he was also concerned about its future. In the last 5 years, the livelihood and employment options for the people of Chamoli district have increased manifold thanks to new hydro power projects, road construction projects and the growing hospitality industry. This has resulted in more and more people migrating to take advantage of these opportunities in a bid for better livelihoods. Maithani thus has been finding it difficult to recruit and retain good quality people to take AAGAAS forward. It has been increasingly challenging for him to attract funding as even large non-profit organisations are looking for sub-million rupees projects.
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