From making travel to Northeast India sustainable to empowering women to speak up – top Social Stories of this week

During a conversation with SocialStory, Ratan Ghimire talked about his efforts to make travel to Northeast India sustainable through his startup Encamp Adventures.

Meanwhile, we also caught up with the sellers of the Gurugram’s 10-year-old Banjara Market — who shared their plights of bearing with the losses.

Here are more stories from this week on SocialStory:

This law student is encouraging and empowering women to speak up and forge ahead

Anushka, a final year law student, used her education and advocacy skills to create awareness on women-centric issues by engaging communities in discussions and assisting women.

Anushka is using her NGO Naari to amplify the conversation on the financial incapacity of women in some parts of the world to afford menstrual products. The NGO also addresses the problem of period poverty in India and its continued efforts to provide sanitary napkins to underprivileged women and expedite responsiveness towards this concern in urban India.

This startup aims to make travel to Northeast India carbon neutral

“The Northeast is very blessed in terms of food and culture, but it is not very accessible to many travellers because of the lack of infrastructure and [guidance] for travellers,” says Ratan Ghimire.

Keen on solving the issue sustainably, Ratan and his team set up Encamp Adventures, a travel tech platform, in August 2018.

Registered in Assam, the startup’s first initiative was the Ziro Music Festival, an outdoor event held in the Ziro Valley of Arunachal Pradesh. The first steps included building ‘alternative accommodations,’ which featured tents pitched at campsites, allowing visitors to experience the destination more holistically. 

How this law graduate built Hardoi’s first community library

In Bansa village in the Hardoi district of Uttar Pradesh, most senior secondary students are sent to nearby cities of Kanpur or Allahabad to prepare for competitive examinations in the hopes that they will secure a government job.

When the lockdown was implemented last year, many students had to return home to the village. Recognising these aspirants needed a place to get coaching was one of the primary motivators behind the opening of the Bansa Community Library.

Gurugram’s 10-year-old Banjara Market to shut down, 2,000+ sellers stare at losses

Gurugram's Banjara Market was set up over 15 years ago by members of the Gadiya Lohar community. Spread over a 25-acre area in Sector 56, this was home to over 2,000 Gadiya Lohars (a nomadic community originally hailing from Chittorgarh, Rajasthan). Now, it is on the verge of a shutdown.

Famous for affordable home decor and furniture items, these shanties were first set up on the roadside. According to sources, they encroached 25 acres of land in the process, and despite repeated notices, the land was not vacated by the sellers.

Earlier this month, the enforcement team of Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP), in the presence of the local police force, demolished about 80 percent of this market.

How Resham Sutra is making the lives of rural silk weavers better

In 2015, Kunal Vaid established Resham Sutra in Delhi to enable India’s rural entrepreneurs to profitably produce and market a variety of silk and handloom products and a wide range of affordable electric reeling, weaving, and spinning machines.

Most of Resham Sutra’s machines are powered by solar energy, which vastly improves the working conditions and creates a predictable and dramatically higher income for over 10,000 silk workers in India.