UJJS founding Chairperson Late Shri Pratap Shikhar along with other co-activists was actively involved in a campaign to protect the forests from massive tree felling that was going on in the Himalayan region during the early 1970s. Having gone through this experience the founding members felt the need of taking up an integrated development program in uttarakhand Himalayas while focusing in the Hen
val river catchment villages to start with. In order to provide a platform for ensuring an all round development of the people of this region a few of them decided to build up a community organization and with this the foundation of “Uttarakhand Jan Jagriti Sansthan” was laid in the year 1983 as a voluntary organization at a Place Called Khadi which is situated close to the river Henval and is popularly known as Jagriti Bhawan among the local communities. Uttarakhand Jan Jagriti Sansthan has been focusing on action programs and activities that would help in women empowerment, natural resource management, water conservation & restoration, safe and clean environment, strengthening of local self governance, disaster management & its mitigation, preparing the mountain communities for mitigating effects of climate change and ensuring rights of unprivileged and displaced people. Uttarakhand Jan Jagriti Sansthan works with the strategy of mass mobilization along with creative development of the Communities. UJJS has taken up several projects and programs introducing new innovations to help and assist the mountain communities have a better and ecologically sustainable life. Construction of improved smokeless wood stoves, low cost toilets, roof water harvesting tanks, compost pits, making bio-mass briquettes and biogas, construction of small ponds known as chahal in local parlance for water harvesting and using them as multipurpose percolation tanks for ground water recharge, Construction of earthquake resistant houses, Introducing eco-san toilets, revival and rejuvenation of springs sheds to improve the quantity and quality of water while bringing in energy efficient, sustainable and low cost water filtration techniques through various experts and partner organizations. Plantation drives have consistently been taken up to revive and rejuvenate the forest cover in the Henval river catchment villages. Several community based plant nurseries have been raised to develop and propagate tree saplings that would provide food, fodder, fruit and fuel needs of the mountain communities. Emphasis is laid and communities are being organized to protect the existing forest cover through controlled use of community forest lands and pastures for which social and bio fencing methods are being adopted and also stone wall fencing has been taken up with community participation. UJJS team has worked together with village communities of Tehri Garhwal building up several strong women groups, youth groups and teams of enthusiastic and vibrant children always ready to take part in all the constructive campaigns and actions that were taken up to usher in a change. Some of the important and successful campaigns that need a special mention are : mobilizing the Tehri administration for providing potable drinking water to the village communities of Than, Bidon, Khankar, Sunarkot and Tipali that were facing acute water problems forcing women to walk several kilometers for bringing potable water, UJJS activists initiated awareness drives against several superstitions and evil practices prevalent in the communities and has been successful to a large extent in removing them. One important success story is that of stopping the practice of sacrificing animals using religion as an excuse. UJJS took up series of programs and activities to undertake strengthening of women groups and local self governance through capacity building, training programs, and exposure and exchange programs for women, youth, children and Panchayati Raj Institutions for skill and leadership development. Campaign and protest actions against alcoholism, women and child abuse have been constantly taken up by UJJS activists there by providing strength solidarity and support to the suffering communities. An important aspect of UJJS activities was to initiate basic education drives by opening kinder gardens in the remote far flung villages of its program area there by giving the much needed relief to the women and other family members who were often forced to leave their little children alone and uncared at home while they went out to attend to the day to day fodder, fuel, water and agricultural needs of the family. Absence of any proper health care facilities made UJJS activists to take up series of health care programs bringing in some relief to the local communities. Projects and programs where specially taken up to cater to the needs of women and adolescent girls in particular. Several young girls were sent to get trained as professional health workers at different training institutions and hospitals so that they could come back and serve the mountain communities. In the last three decades Uttarakhand Jan Jagriti Sansthan activists along with several other community organizations have succeeded in bringing visible impacts in the areas of environment and ecological restoration, women and child empowerment, preparedness of communities for local self governance and awareness status of health and sanitation. UJJS feels that a lot needs to be done in the present complex socio-economic scenario for preparing the communities for an environmentally sound and ecologically sustainable life style and is making continuous effort in this direction. UJJS is looking forward for creative ideas, inputs, solidarity and support to strengthen its initiatives in the Himalayan region.
