The Nanhi Chhaan Foundation, a not-for-profit organization set up in August of 2008, aims at generating an understanding of the issues of an inverse gender ratio and depleting tree cover, as a part of the global arena of women's and environmental issues.
The Nanhi Chhaan Foundation seeks to use the strength and adaptability of human faith – religious, spiritual, or rational – to invoke interest and concern about these problems, and provides programs by which individuals as well as organizations can partake in creating sustainable solutions for the same.
Our Philosophy
The gender ratio in India, far from stabilizing or self-correcting, has been dropping continuously for years, standing now (as per the last Census) at 927 girls per 1000 boys. 1 out of 5 girl children die before attaining the age of 5.
The impact of not recognizing the rights of the girl child is detrimental to all forms of society’s progress, both socially and economically. With increasing female feticide and female infanticide, partisan treatment between young girls and boys that often favours the latter gender has a much larger impact. There is an increase in the dropout rate of girls in education systems, violence against women and girls as well as the serious economic deprivation of women and girl’s access to services, skills and information that could enable them to lead just and healthy lives.
Rapid deforestation and clearing of land for a variety of purposes has also led to the dwindling of tree cover – causing further problems of soil erosion, loss of habitat, and extreme fluctuations in weather. India’s commitment to increase our forest cover from 21% to 32% (the minimum global standard for ecological balance) has remained a distance dream, with our forest cover reducing each year by 0.1% instead of going up.
As global citizens, we know that climate change does not consider the boundaries of country or class. Carbon dioxide, regardless of where it is produced, is distributed evenly throughout the global atmosphere. It is our greed that makes us loose the green cover of trees, singularly contributing to global warming.
Nanhi Chhaan’s commitment is to restore a much-needed balance. By reducing the impact of global warming by encouraging the plantation of trees and the distribution of saplings, Nanhi Chhaan believes that the nurture of each sapling into a tree carries a commitment to respecting the rights of the girl child to a life with dignity and her right to nurture and develop to her fullest potential.
The Nanhi Chhaan mandate encourages partnerships across the globe, that bring together stakeholders who commit to increasing our global tree cover as well as advancing girls and women’s rights. The Nanhi Chhaan Foundation takes the marriage of these two ideas, replete in all faiths, and gives you the platform to do something, no matter how small or large, symbolic or not, to contribute and create change.
