Welcome at Stichting Jalihal
Our working area has a hot and dry climate, which is exacerbated by climate change. The soil is poor, because far too much fertilizer was used in the past. The only way to turn the tide is to plant trees. But then there must be a lot.
Hence our current project: One Million Trees.
Everyone in the wider area of Jalihal will hear about this, because YPS (our partner) is widely known and has authority in the region. Everyone feels that this is the chance. And so there are many requests from farmers, schools and women who want to participate. As a result, our scope has expanded from the original 22 to 37 villages. So it really starts to work.
2018 - A successful pilot, with the planting of trees and shrubs on 110 fields.
2019 - The first year in which one thousand plots were planted with 200 trees and shrubs each.
2020 - Despite corona, 952 participants, including women from our original target group, planted nearly 200,000 trees and shrubs.
2021 - The local team of One Million Trees is better prepared than ever to add another 1,000 participants.
End of 2023 - Our dream has come true: One Million Trees are growing!
Stichting Jalihal is the link in the whole that makes this project financially possible.
We really need your financial help for this!
With € 5 you can help plant two trees and a shrub.
For more information, see the menu under "One Million Trees".
Mission
Stichting Jalihal works for poor, single women in rural India. Within the Indian situation, these women have no chance to improve their standard of living. Because we work together with the Indian development organization Yerala Projects Society (YPS) we do not fall into cultural ravines and can provide support exactly where it is needed.
Goal
To offer the women of our target group the opportunity to start an activity themselves, so that they can increase their income; not incidentally but structurally. We develop projects together with YPS that are tailored to our target group. We collect the funds to make those projects possible and YPS takes care of their implementation. If the women can maintain their micro-businesses, they become financially independent and their children go to school (YPS sets that as a condition). This increases their prestige within their own village.
Work area
Jalihal village is the center of our activities. We named the foundation after that. It is located in the southeast of the state of Maharashtra. The projects are carried out in Jalihal and 21 surrounding villages.
Introduction
As an outsider it is not possible to fathom Indian culture. We know so much about it that we understand how it is possible that many people as untouchables are excluded from a reasonable level of life from birth. Just because we understand it doesn't mean we agree. On the contrary! Do outcasts already have no chance to give shape and content to their own lives; within it, it is the women who suffer the most. They cannot assert rights. Not infrequently they are chased away by their husbands or in-laws when they have no children or only daughters. That is why women are our target group, all the more because they handle the opportunities that are offered dutifully. With our projects we break through the hopelessness of these women and they get the opportunity to learn a trade and start their own business.
Projects
The projects must be simple because half of the women cannot read and write. That's why we started with a sewing machine project, then a goat project, then a project combining goats with small fields, then an emergency relief project (when hunger was threatened due to perennial drought) and now a chicken project has our focus. You can follow the developments within this project both on this site and on Facebook. How we arrive at a choice for each new project can be found under the tab “Projects”.
Sustainability
Women get a better income. This also means better nutrition, children attending school and more social contacts between the women. That gives faith in your own abilities. Women from previous projects no longer need support; they are self-supporting. It's working.
More than once we have seen how our initiatives opened the eyes of parents whose daughter was in such an unfortunate situation. They dared to help their daughter, rowing against the current, as it were. Thanks to this gradual change in mentality, our projects will also have a sustainable effect.
History
Dora and Huub Bosse have worked for 15 years with producers in India as buyers for world shops. When they subsequently visited Jalihal at the invitation of YPS in 2004, they were so impressed by the harsh conditions in which approximately 750 women in particular have to live there that the Jalihal Foundation was a logical follow-up. The first project started in 2005.
References
Stichting Jalihal has the ANBI registration, which means that donations are deductible from the income tax. We first submit each new project to Wilde Ganzen. This means (at least until now) not only important financial support, but it also acts as a quality seal of the project.