3 Kinds of Projects

In August 2010, HI volunteers participated in assessments in Sham villages and with department partners. From those assessments, we agreed to fund three kinds of projects: rebuilding infrastructure, support for kids at the village level and district-wide social services focused on trauma relief.

Villagers are managing the reconstruction of lost community centres, damaged school compounds and destroyed equipment in Sham villages. We're supporting renewable energy technologies and passive solar building construction wherever possible.

Parents are naturally concerned about their children, not wanting them to experience too much change because of the floods. Their projects are heating school tents and operating Kids Camps in seven HI areas.

HI members are offering extremely valuable Trauma Counseling and psychotropic medicines through the Departments of Health and Education, counseling and medicine for HIV and hep B positive, pregnant women and an evolving Kid's Stories project. All three projects are for anyone, anywhere in the district; thousands of Ladakhis are benefiting. We hope that all three of these projects will become on-going programmes that continue to serve.

OCTOBER 2011 UPDATE

It hurts to see kids still studying in tents in Kangral and Gongma. It helps to participate in village meetings where the discussion about the new community centre grows more and more animated. And it's a great joy to see a tiny garden producing peas where there was only mud 12 months ago.

The October 2011 Update has the projects list and accounts for all our funders. It offers ideas on the 3 areas where funders can continue to help.

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WINTER - SPRING 2010-11 UPDATE

It's fasccinating to listen to villager's talk of what happened to them expanding to include the 'aid' that arrived after the floods and left when the snows came. While people wanted to get on with their lives, they were equally recognising that life had changed.

The Winter-Spring 2010-2011 Update is a brief summary of the decisions made by villagers on what and how to rebuild and what projects operated through the winter of 2011.

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OCTOBER 2010 UPDATE

You’ve made a difference in thousands of lives. I cannot even begin to thank the hundreds of you from the UK, EU, USA, Canada and India who made it happen. I wish you could share the joy of the village and kids’ meetings I’ve been participating in.

The October 2010 Update details some of the ‘so what?” - the incredible difference made with funds that arrived in villages before winter set in.

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THE SCALE OF THE CHALLENGE

As you can see from the photos in the box to the right, the damage has been widespread and devastating: lives lost, small businesses gone, homes destroyed and vital food crops gone with fields under metres of concrete-like mud.

In Domkhar, the damage was equally catastrophic...

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  The flash flood at Hanu Yokma killed, injured, destroyed the entire village’s winter rations and damaged over 20 homes. The flood came at midnight when people were sleeping.
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  Damaged barley field. Thousands of fields were lost, just days before the harvest. The mud dried like cement. All our villages also lost their irrigation canals. The army and government are providing emergency rations for all remote villages.
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  Army dropping relief supplies
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  All that’s left of the road and the army camp at Hanu – it's under 6 metres of mud.
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  The Hanu river lost 5 of its 7 bridges, including the one on the main highway. Here the span is still ¾ in place, but the river cut a new channel.
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  The main highway along the Indus is now under 2-4 m of water and up to 6m of mud in many places. There are more than 100 large washouts between our villages of Hanu and Khaltse.

OUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

• Doctors and counselors on the Mental Health Team are training village health workers across the district to ensure that services get to every person in need.
• Two doctors are going 'outside' to India this winter for training in counseling and psychiatry.
• Health and Education volunteers are compiling Kids' Stories into a DVD and book, which will be given to schools, clinics and women's groups in all villages. The DVD will also have chapters on how to deal with trauma.
• The Community Centres being built in Hanu and Achina are testing innovative passive solar concepts into their structures and the Achina-pa will build a solar heated bath house at their centre.
• Kid's Camps are operating again in the winter of 2012.
• Unfortunately, children are studying in tents for a second winter in 3 of our villages. We'll help heat those tents.
• HI members continue to visit the remote devastated villages, some of which still don't have a rebuilt footpath, documenting need so that these people are also heard.
• Our Future Leaders are documenting villagers' stories – as an important historical document, but also to let people have their own voice.
• Most important, we won't let our 5 ongoing projects get derailed. Our partners tell us that we are an important part of them building something that endures, even in tragedy.
  

To learn more about the work that Health Inc has been doing in Ladakh, click here to visit the main Health Inc site.