In a multi cultural and diverse country such as India, faith is perhaps one of the few omnipresent factors that reach out to all strata’s of society. Representing the secular fabric of all faiths, Nanhi Chhaan leverages the positive power of faith to raise an emotive chord in citizens and encourage communities to commit to supporting the nurturing of the girl child and trees. Consequently, Nanhi Chhaan uses this platform to push for change. The foundation does not endorse any one faith and believes in an individual’s right to choose what he/she believes in.
In order to spread awareness NC has a model for delivery, founded in Punjab on the 27th of August 2009. By partnering from the locations of different faiths, Nanhi Chhaan runs sapling distribution programmes that also talk about the rights of the girl child, working from Temples, Gurdwara’s, Churches, Dargah’s etc. At each programme, religious and political leaders from that faith are invited to address their community on the urgent need to address these twin issues, pledging their support to the campaign.
Saplings are distributed, free of cost, to those who want them from the Booths set up for this purpose. All saplings are treated as ‘Prasad’ from the religious institutions. Once the launch from a site takes place, sapling distribution continues from the Booth set up at the site. Receivers are also encouraged to open Bank Accounts with Punjab National Bank in name of girl child with a token contribution of Rs. 10/- by bank (scheme was launched by PNB as its CSR contribution to the cause).
The Model entails expense in distributing the saplings properly packaged and running the distribution booth. The experience of the booth permanently running in Golden Temple Galiara has been very successful and over 1,20,000 saplings have been distributed there since Aug. 2008. It costs about Rs. 1.5 Lakhs/ month to run the booth.
Total Project Cost: 1,50,000 per month for sapling distribution programmes at one location.
Partners:
The Sikh Gurdwara Prabhandhak Committee
Ajmer Sharif
Punjab National Bank, India
The Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee
Bangla Sahib Gurdwara
The Archbishop of Delhi
Sacret Heart Cathedral
Pir Hasan Sani Nizami
Nizamuddin Dargah
Mr. Isac Malekar
Judha Hyam Synagogue
Rajinder Singh Chadha
Baru Sahib
Ven. Doboom Tulku
Tibet House
Dr. Prem Choudhry
Ms. Raji Ramnan
Foundation for Universal Responsibility Representative
Jain Community
Professor Manjeet Singh
Former Jathedar Akaltakhat and
Kes Garh Sahib
