About Us
Nature Lovers
One Touch Of Nature Makes The Whole World Kind
Haijalo is a voluntary and community action group in Champawat, Uttarakhand, incubated at Keeday Makauday Foundation.
The Kumaoni phrase ‘HaiJalo’ means ‘It shall happen’. We are taking steps to resolve local societal and environmental issues while shaping Pahadi communities with kindness, tolerance, and the power of volunteering. Our volunteers have worked on waste management and menstrual health and hygiene in the past.
Enabling local businesses which increase self-reliance of communities and trim the need for products, especially plastic packaged, coming all the way from the plains.
A RukhThokko fellowship batch themed on Climate Change for youth to build climate resilience and bring back native forests in Champawat.
Some Cool Facts
Numbers Speak For Themselves
No CEOs, all Superheroes
Janaki Didi
who worked hard to send her children to an English medium school, but herself chose to tend the cows, dogs and build a beautiful home for her family. Thousands of Pahadi women like Janki Didi are the reason our volunteers are cared for, Uttarakhand has a booming dairy industry and farming continues to this day despite the odds.
Kru
is naturally high on life. When the stakes are high and challenges spring up, trust her to break into dance. Ever ready for a conversation on philosophy or politics, especially if paired with a pack of Potata biscuits. Kru coordinates our RukhThokko Internship, cooks with love and is often the voice of conscience at HaiJalo.
Chetak aka Vijay Da
leads our Pahadi Khiladi programme. An ex-cricketer at Nationals, student of climate change, spirited mobiliser and avid consumer of dairy, dry fruit and baked rasgullas. Vijay stands by his life choices to build a space for himself in the alternative sector, forsaking a government job to attend callings of a more sporty nature.
Mannu
the Bagheera of our world, advises on most things environmental. Mentor, barefoot, soap-shunning, forest growing, non-violent, budding tarot card clairvoyant. Mannu has first hand experience in being raised by a community of like-minded wildlings and this is part of the legacy he will most likely leave behind.
Bombil
a fish who hath swam around the development sector long enough to learn that the flap of a butterfly’s wings and a miniscule, invisible act of kindness are equal in their potency for remarkable transformation. Animated, spitting mad ideas faster than a galloping horse and riding them to the finish line.