Trust Activities

Following successful delivery of the preventive health care programmes in remote Himalayan villages, with further encouragement and support from the government and donors, the Trust has scaled up HERnetwork Projects in Haridwar and Ramgarh areas as well.

Village Ways-HERnetwork for Preventive Health Care:

In Saryu and Pindar valleys, the remote areas of Kumaon, Uttarakhand

The Trust has partnered with BSR’s HERnetwork (Business for Social Responsibility) to work relentlessly on women’s health issues through contextualized and adapted preventive health care programmes across the remote valleys of Uttarakhand.

Through its master trainers and selection of volunteers from within the villages as peer health educators, together forming the Village Ways-HERnetwork, the Trust has successfully sensitized the remote and hard to reach villages of Saryu and Pindar valleys of Kumaon not only at the community level but also at the household level through peer education outreach activities.
Women from within the villages were engaged and their capacities built to make them empowered change leaders in their own villages, be it for health, nutrition, personal hygiene or even breaking social taboos surrounding menstrual hygiene.
The household sessions were carried out using pictorial IEC materials, interactive sessions and interesting activities. Following several rounds of peer health education at the household level through close and engaging conversations with the family members on the critical health needs identified as per the baseline, impact assessments were carried out and data analyzed to establish positive community change post-intervention.
In a span of about five years, three phases of Village Ways-HERnetwork project was implemented successfully in Saryu and Pindar valleys reaching out to over 12,900 population, over 6600 men and 6300 women across 40 villages.
The Trust’s experience over the past years in the remote valleys highlighted on the need for basic primary health care in the villages. This in turn, necessitated the Trust to look for innovative solutions to overcome the challenge of the absence of doctors at the grassroots. Eventually, the idea of Tulsi Telehealth Care was conceived.

In Ramgarh area, Nainital, Uttarakhand

Through the knitting groups of women in Kilmora/ Kumaon Grameen Udyog, the Trust has initiated formation of the Village Ways-HERnetwork in Ramgarh block as well.
This Project is enabling delivery of preventive health care at the village level to the catchment population in Ramgarh area of Nainital.

Tulsi Telehealth Care Initiative:

In Saryu and Pindar valleys of Uttarakhand

In collaboration with Foundation for Innovations in Health (FIH), West Bengal, a pioneer in Telehealth, the Trust strives to enable primary health care in the remote valleys of Kumaon region.
With the use of an intelligent software and internet communication technologies, Tulsi Telehealth care initiative connects doctors located remotely to patients at the village level for teleconsultations and delivery of treatment through the trained local youths as Health Assistants.

In Ramgarh block, Nainital

In collaboration with HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprises), Village Ways Charitable Trust has lunched Tulsi Telehealth Care Initiative in Ramgarh block of Nainital district.

The project aims to build a robust and sustainable model of primary care and public health among the last-mile population through fully functional mobile facilities with HPE workstations equipped with software networking capabilities, an open and accessible web-based electronic medical records system, and essential diagnostic equipment integrated into the cloud.
Over 30 villages across Ramgarh and Dhari blocks, a catchment population of more than 15000 are being reached.

In Haridwar

With directive from the Chief Medical Officer of Haridwar, the Trust is currently working on data integration through implementation of Triple A register at the grassroot level for improved maternal and child health outcomes as well as establishing Village Ways - HERnetwork for preventive health care in Haridwar.
Through a team of four field coordinators, the Projects target about 145 Front-line workers, a population of more than 50,000 across 16 villages in Narsan and Khanpur, two of the most backward blocks of Haridwar.

In Kochi

Green Fuel Project in Kerala has been another environmental project initiated and supported by the Trust.

The Trust bought a Fuel Pod and formed a women’s committee to convert waste cooking oil into biofuel. The fuel thus made is used to run a houseboat in Kerala. It is far less polluting and creates income for women-led self-help group in the Chenganda village, Kerala.
The impact of these projects drives to scale the Trust’s initiatives, create a movement of sustainable manufacturing in the remote areas of the Himalayas where women find themselves alone as husbands leave the villages in search of work in cities, sometimes only returning once a year.
The Project was a social enterprise focused on developing responsible tourism in partnership with poorer rural communities, in order to sustain village life and culture, improve livelihoods in remote rural areas and reduce the need for outward migration.
The Project sought to create self-reliant local Village Tourism Enterprises (VTEs), each of which is sufficiently profitable to benefit the wider community by creating additional sources of community, household and individual income.
The Low-impact tourism was designed to add a necessary additional income stream for communities alongside their traditional livelihood systems, whilst maintaining the social and environmental character.

In addition to the above public health projects, there are several livelihood generation programmes undertaken at the Community Centre in Supi in Saryu valley. Some of them include making and promoting cotton shopping bags, Ringal baskets, knitting and other local handicrafts. Rural women from the communities were trained and market linkages provided to them for income generation.

Revival of the use of local wool in Saryu valley

The Trust aims to encourage the use of local sheep wool for knitting and weaving, instead of cheap acrylic yarns, which are making its way into village life.

The villagers have started to prefer acrylic yarns as washing, carding and spinning of their locally available sheep wool takes time.
To support the use of local wool, the Trust is providing at the Supi Community Centre, two machines for washing and carding the local wool. Though a local spinning ‘charkha‘ will be available, the old traditional method of drop spindle spinning.
Making of traditional rugs, large jackets, heavy woollen socks and thick throws is being taught to the community women and revival of local wool envisaged.

HER Network - Health Awareness Project, Supi Village

Village Ways Charitable Trust collaborated with Ann Inc. to implement a pilot health project called HER Network from October 2014 to April 2016 at Supi village with the focus to empower women through health knowledge and link the village with adequate health amenities. Program activities directly impacted 900 women and 900 men through Health Awareness Workshops and Drives.

The fruitful synergy between the Trust and locals has led to the establishment of the Supi Community Centre, following two years of hard work. The objective of the centre is to build capacities of women and youth. In the future, we hope to make this centre self-sustainable and to elevate the local handicraft to international markets.

“The Village Bag” project was started to support the women of the villages. They bear almost all responsibility for meeting the basic needs of the family, yet are systematically denied the resources, information and freedom they need to fulfill this responsibility.

Thanks to initial enthusiasm from Penny Jewell, who has a small soap factory in Australia, the Trust has been encouraging soap production in the Binsar villages, focused on Kathdhara.

The Village Ways Charitable Trust provided financial support to communities in the backwater villages of Kerala to enable them to construct a traditional Kettuvallam houseboat, which was launched in October 2011. This activity was to support the revival of traditional style of boat making in wood.

The Village Ways Charitable Trust is in the process of gathering recipes collected from local villages where Village Ways and the Trust are operating. Our local recipes will be published in the form of a cookery book.

The Trust raised funds to purchase equipment (‘FuelPod2’) that enables waste cooking oil to be converted into a fuel to power the Goodearth houseboat. This is being managed by a women’s group (KGVS) from Chenganda. They will earn additional income and the processed fuel will be far less polluting than conventional diesel, thereby improving the local environment

Charitable Trust

Trust Activities

HER Network - Health Awareness Project, Supi Village

Supi Community Centre

Shopping Bags, Tailoring & Handicrafts

Soap Making

Good Earth, The Houseboat

Recipe Cards & Cookery Book

Processing waste cooking oil