Action for Justice and Sustainability

Pithoragarh’s fragile ecosystem faces increasing threats from extreme climate events such as droughts, forest fires, landslides, and floods. ARPAN works proactively to build community resilience by mobilizing local stakeholders – including youth, women, indigenous tribes, Dalits, and single women – to prevent and respond to these crises.

Our approach focuses on promoting climate-resilient agriculture such as millet cultivation, advocating for the use of MGNREGA funds to build local adaptation infrastructure, and enabling communities to plan and respond collectively to climate challenges. Through participatory planning, awareness drives, and social audits, we foster inclusive, community-led action for sustainable adaptation and ecological balance.

Van Panchayats, established under the Indian Forest Act of 1927, are community-led forest management institutions that play a vital role in conservation and sustainable resource use. When effectively governed, these forests act as natural buffers for water conservation and protection against landslides. Strengthening local participation, especially that of women who rely on forests for firewood, fodder, and grazing, is central to ensuring their sustainability.

Our work involves protecting common forest resources and deepening community participation in forest governance. The initiative mobilises youth, community leaders, women’s groups, and elected representatives to prevent forest fires, advocacy for developing fire lines and water ponds, and raise awareness about forest ecology and climate impacts. The programme engages civil society and government stakeholders to advance strategies for fire management and green cover restoration.

In Uttarakhand, children face challenges such as trafficking, child labour, abuse, and low transition rates to higher education, especially for girls. Our work with children focuses on collaborating with School Management Committees (SMCs) to reduce dropout rates and reintegrate students, partnering with women elected representatives to improve school infrastructure (including access roads), promoting measures to prevent and address child trafficking, labour, and exploitation, providing support for children who are victims of abuse and violence, and initiating legal action in cases of child abuse.

Until 2023, we served as the coordinating agency for the Child Helpline 1098 in Pithoragarh district, supporting timely response and care for children in need. 1098 is a national 24-hour emergency helpline for children in need of care and protection by the Ministry of Women and Child Development with Childline India Foundation as the national nodal agency.

The impact has been significant in the lives of the children and communities we work with. ARPAN’s strategy is child-centric and community-led, empowering children and key stakeholders with information, enabling them to lead advocacy campaigns, and working to prevent violation of children’s rights and exploitation.

Located in the ecologically fragile Western Himalayas, ARPAN regularly engages in humanitarian interventions to respond to natural disasters such as landslides, earthquakes, flash floods, and forest fires. Over the years, we have led significant relief and recovery efforts, including during the 2014 Uttarakhand floods and the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2022).

Our humanitarian work prioritises the most vulnerable such as, indigenous tribes, Dalits, single women, and other marginalised groups, who often live in disaster-prone or remote and fragile areas. We focus on inclusive and accountable response mechanisms by identifying the most affected communities, mobilising them to participate in relief and rehabilitation, ensuring participatory planning that reflects their needs, and upholding transparency through social audits to ensure responsible and equitable use of resources.

ARPAN uses campaigns as a dynamic platform to drive collective action, amplify marginalized voices, and foster meaningful participation across communities. By mobilizing women, youth, and allies around crucial gender and social justice issues, these campaigns serve both as a powerful participatory approach – engaging communities directly in advocacy and dialogue – and as a strategic tool for collectivizing, building solidarity, and advancing large-scale change. Through these efforts, ARPAN unites people across social boundaries, harnessing collective strength to challenge discrimination and promote equality.

Our key campaigns include:

• Observances of Important Social Days (Youth Day, Daughters’ Day, Menstruation Day, Indigenous People’s Day, Women’s Day, Girl Child Day, Anti-Child Labour Day, Human Rights Day)
• One Billion Rising (OBR)
• Sixteen Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence
• Social and Behavioural Change Campaigns (Menstrual Stigma, Alcoholism)
• Prevention of Sexual Harassment