Vimlendu Jha’s team at Swechha is working to make education, & environment projects sustainable

“I am a pessimist activist,” says Vimlendu Jha, the founder of Swechha, a Delhi based, youth-run, and youth-focused NGO that deals with environmental and social development issues. In the past 12 years of their existence, Swechha has tirelessly worked on several projects. Swechha was a pioneer of the We for Yamuna campaign, a movement to save the dying river which is the lifeline of our city. Every monsoon they plant almost 2,000 trees as a part of their Monsoon Wooding Campaign. Through its Pagdandi initiative, the team has been reaching out to thousands of slum children and facilitating their access to education, health, hygiene, livelihood, life skills, environment and sustainable living. The list of their projects—as we pointed out—is rather long but Jha and his volunteers believe they have an equally long way to go. “There is nothing to celebrate—yet.” The reason: “The state of the river is still what it was 12 years ago.” Some twelve years ago, a 20-year-old Jha, a firebrand idealist, burning with the desire to do something for his city, decided to raise his voice against the pathetic state of the Yamuna. What started as an unorganised youth movement, in which most youngsters gathered to express their frustration against the vague thing called the ‘system and administration’, soon became an organised movement—as the voices started reaching the right places and the right people. Not just organisations such as the United Nations, but also the Indian government started expressing its desire to start a dialogue with the protestors. As the movement caught momentum, Jha realised that he needed to give the campaign a shape. Otherwise, that, like any other movement, would eventually die a slow death. So Swechha was born. Jha, who had taken a year off from his studies, had to go back to college and complete his degree. Leaving Swechha in an infantile stage, he packed his bags and left for Mumbai to graduate in social work. By the time he returned to Delhi, Swechha, the We for Yamuna Campaign, it had lost its initial connect. Therefore, Jha was forced to take up other jobs. He worked for another NGO called Youth Reach for sometime and then he worked for a bank, but the whole time he was not happy. He missed his baby, Swechha. Jha decided to quit and get back to his NGO roots and start afresh. It was from the year 2004 that Swechha really started its work. They decided to work through three dimensions. One was Children Active Citizenship, second was Youth in Civil Society, and the third was campaigns and workshops they would organise from time to time. Over the years, several programmes have been introduced under these dimensions. Like the aforementioned Pagdandi initiative or the Bridge the Gap initiative which is a special curriculum designed for schools. The curriculum aims at reducing the gap between mankind and the biodiversity surrounding it. Both these initiatives fall under the sphere of Children Active Citizenship. Other initiatives like Influence which is a Youth Environmental Programme through which they educate and encourage young people to act on environment and sustainability issues is a part of Youth in Civil Society initiative. Other than the various programmes that they run, they also make documentaries, and almost all of their documentary films have won awards. They organise exciting trips to the originating point of the river Yamuna, it is called the Yamuna Yatra. They also take nearly 50 volunteers on a village tour, where these volunteers develop an understanding of village life, spend time with the villagers, interact and get a closer view of rural life. Looking at all their programmes, one thing becomes clear; the organisation is comfortably funded, because these initiatives are money intensive. Vimlendu says that they have made all their money themselves. “Initially, we did not need much money, at night we would make paper bags and in the morning we would sell them at Dilli Haat, and that would suffice.” But then they reached a point where they needed to make more money, and staying up all nights wasn’t an option. So they organised workshops and charged for them. They organised Cyclothons, Yatras and charged for all these things. This brought financial stability. “Eighty per cent of our money comes from the self sustaining practices, and the rest comes from the funding we receive from our various partners like the UN, the European Commission, the American Embassy and Nokia, which has always been a big supporter.” Despite the toil and generous funding, capital, according to the man, is always the trouble area. And he blames the India Shining façade for it because the country’s image of a prospering nation stops the foreign investors from putting in their money. Then he blames his lack of grey hair. “Ten years ago, I had no grey hair! Therefore no one trusted me. (laughs) It was difficult to keep myself motivated, no one trusts the young in this country,” says Jha, who now, thankfully, has a few grey strands, and presumably better funding. However, he says, that there is a lot more that can be done. The ‘We for Yamuna’ is actually the “We for a lot of things,” he says. That is why, he can’t celebrate anything. The river, as mentioned earlier, still needs cleaning; the governments are still as pathetic in their attitudes, there are still so many children who need to go to school and there are so many environmental concerns that have to be addressed. Till all this is done, there is not going to be a moment’s rest in Swechha.