CRPF Join Hands With Nanhi Chhaan
Two issues on the social agenda of the country require urgent and transformational attention. The first is an adverse gender ratio and the second is the degradation of the environment. For this, protecting the girl child and preserving trees is vitally important if human life is to be preserved on the planet. Most importantly it has to be done in a fundamentally different way.
The Nanhi Chhaan Foundation was set up to address these objectives as part of its vision and mission. In an inspiringly new approach the Foundation seeks to make a positive impact for protecting the girl child and for preserving trees through the positive power of faith. The initiative cuts across all segments of society and faiths and invokes citizens to urgently act to raise awareness and to actively participate in corrective actions. In a symbolic gesture families who visit their respective places of religious worship receive plant saplings as religious offerings whenever a girl enters their family either as a new born or as a bahu(bride). Both – little girls and saplings – are nature’s ‘greatest givers’ and by receiving saplings from places of religious worship we hope citizens will imbibe the message of their preservation with divine reverence.
The distribution and ritualistic planting of these saplings in homes, schools, factories, institutions, parks and the like will be used as occasions to spread awareness, raise debate and propel citizens to recognize the horrors of female infanticide, female feticide and the destruction of forest cover. Most importantly citizens need to recognize that natures two great givers, mothers(when girls grow up) and trees are facing unprecedented destruction and the continuation of such harm will seriously threaten human life itself.
That Nanhi Chhaan has touched an inspirational cord is evident from the response it has evoked in a short time since its launch on 27th August last year. From the Shri Harmandir Sahib and Shri Damdama Sahib Gurudwaras, Sacred Heart Cathedral, Delhi. Bangla Sahib Gurdwara, Delhi and Govind Devji Temple, Jaipur and from schools and colleges over 6,50,000 saplings have already been distributed to date. Similar launches are soon proposed from many places of Religious worship including the Dargah at Ajmer Sharif, and from temples in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi. The response is emotive and there is every sense that in it we have the makings of a national movement. It seems that faith is delivering where rationality and logic have delivered less than adequate success.
In line with our intention to maintain a strong pace of action, we are planning several initiatives in the coming months – first of which, is the formal adoption of Nanhi Chhaan by India’s largest paramilitary force, C.R.P.F on the 18th of December. The programme was inaugurated in the presence of the Hon’ble Home Minister, Mr. P. Chidambaram and D.G – C.R.P.F, Mr. A. S. Gill along with their top brass. The venue of the event was the C.G.O Complex, Lodi Road grounds. It was a gathering of 1000+ jawans and their families with a special emphasis on newly born Girls and ‘bahus’ who were handed over saplings by the Chief Guest and other dignitaries. New bank accounts were opened by P.N.B under their Nanhi Chhaan scheme with a deposit of Rs 250 by C.W.W.A (CRPF Womens Welfare Association) and Rs 20 by PNB, these pass-books were distributed from the dais.
Nanhi Chhaan movement needs the support of Industry, NGO’s, civil society institutions and government as it seeks to address its critical issues on the social agenda.
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Tags: crpf, nanhi chhaan
