Sunday, January 9, 2011

Working with the Communities 2011- Dumsi Pakha village, Kalimpong


Dumsi Pakha is a tiny village located within Kalimpong town's municipal limits and has been featured in detail in this blog here.
It has a population of approx 300 people with most of the adult males working as labourers. The houses in the area are densely packed with virtually no drainage system existing and the fact that two large natural drains (jhoras) plough through this area makes it inherently unstable.
As per the President of the village no one has worked in the area as regards capacity building or making the people more aware about landslide hazards even though as per him everyone spends sleepless nights when it rains heavily.
SaveTheHills carried out some community work last year in Chibo/Pashyor villages see here and with very positive results.
We hope to start similar work in Dumsi Pakha by February 2011 - preliminary ground work as regards arranging for training of volunteers in first aid, SAR etc is being undertaken currently.

Praful Rao

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