A Community Manager therefore enjoys the chance to not only meet lot of members but also shares the responsibility of shaping the future of VOH community. VOH communities are for ideation and working towards giving back to the state as well as seeking professional and personal acquaintances amongst members.

In the past, VOH members have contributed by writing articles about Himachal, organising blood donations camps, donating computers for rural schools and helping other voluntary organisations setup their own websites. This is exciting work and very challenging considering the sheer lack of resources we work with.

We want to add more team members to our existing set of moderators so as to bring in fresh thinking and motivation with zeal to drive VOH to the next level of evolution. We also hope to find motivated individuals who find this work exciting and would like to commit few hours online every week from their current location to manage our online communities. The work will involve:

• Initiating discussions of interest among members
• Sharing latest news about Himachal with members
• Seeking member contributions for VOH supported projects
• Moderate messages to be circulated amongst community members
• Highlighting members who have made positive contributions in the community

If you are interested then kindly send a mail to team {AT} himvani {dot} com

Chaksu Roy from PRS Legislative Research spoke about the need for journalists and members of the civil society organisations to familiarise themselves with legislative processes and the points of engagement for citizens therein.

The working of the Indian Parliament was discussed at length and also the profile of the MP – his roles, responsibilities vis-à-vis expectations of the voters. Participants were made aware how to contribute to the law-making process. The workshop also focused on the work of legislators and legislative bodies and how PRS Legislative Research can be a valuable resource.  The participants share their experiences and ideas of engagement that they would like to pursue with legislators.

PRS Legislative Research is a Delhi-based research organisation that seeks to make the legislative process more informed, participatory and transparent. Voice of Himachal (VOH) is a not-for-profit organisation set up with a purpose of catalysing sustainable development in the state of Himachal Pradesh.

PRS has organised similar workshop in 13 cities across the country, including Delhi, Hyderabad, Guwahati, Ranchi, Bhubaneshwar, Itanagar and Cochin. The workshop design

As journalists or social workers, there are various questions that crop up regarding the political process. How can one track the performance of MPs/MLAs? How can one hold them accountable to the promises they make? Most importantly, how can one engage with the legislative process and legislators? These are some of the questions that the PRS workshop, exclusively for journalists and NGOs, seeks to answer.

PRS aims to increase public engagement on issues of national importance through collaborative activities. PRS has been reaching out to the citizen sector and the media to enable greater interaction with the legislative system.

PRS closely tracks the legislative business of Parliament and the Parliamentary activities of individual MPs. The PRS team frequently provides journalists with analysis related to Parliament and legislation.

Date: 17th September 2009

Place: Bachat Bhawan, Shimla

Limited seats: 25 – 30 available

Objectives of the workshop

• The objective of the workshop is to inform participants about the various avenues of engagement with legislators and legislative process.
• It also focuses on the work of legislators and legislative bodies and how PRS Legislative Research can be a valuable resource.
• It provides a forum for participants to share their experiences and share their ideas of engagement that they would like to pursue after the workshop

If you are interested in participating in this workshop then please send a mail to info@himvani.com or speak to Varun at 9805510111.

You can also Tweet about this workshop by sending a message to @himvani

About PRS ( www.prsindia.org )

PRS Legislative Research is an independent research initiative that aims to strengthen the legislative debate by making it better informed, more transparent and participatory. PRS regularly produces easy-to-understand Legislative Briefs on Bills pending in Parliament, which is sent to all 790 Members of Parliament, 700 journalists and over 1000 NGOs. PRS staff has interacted with over 100 MPs and briefed them on both legislative and non-legislative issues being debated in Parliament.

About VOH

Voice of Himachal (VOH) is a non – for – profit organisation setup with a purpose of catalysing sustainable development in the state of Himachal Pradesh. HimVani.com, a VOH publication, is one the most widely read website on Himachal highlighting social and developmental issues in the state. In addition to this VOH through its network partners works extensively with Youth, Women and Farmers in Himachal Pradesh.

To further our work in supporting the voluntary blood donation movement in Himachal, YES and VOH have planned similar camps in other areas of the state.  The next one will be in Solan on 12th September.

We plan to organise more such camps every month and seek volunteers as well as donors who can contribute money for organising such camps. On an average such a camp costs Rs.10,000/-.

You contributions will go a long way in supporting the blood donation movement in the state as well as fulfil the needs of needy patients who find it hard to get blood in times of emergencies.

Please revert back if you want to associate with this cause.

Prof Ahluwalia making his point during the BarCamp

The event was initiated by Voice Of Himachal and sponsored by Srijan, Padmavati Balaji Institute, Instablogs and HPIE. Around 80 participants from all across the state and also places as far off as Bangalore, Delhi and Chandigarh participated in the tech meet during which entrepreneurship in context to social media was the burning topic for discussion.

RangeDe.org presentation

Secretary, information technology, Himachal, BK Aggrawal, was the chief guest on the occasion and he made a detailed presentation about opportunities that abound in the state following the government’s e-governance drive.

Pooja Kashyap from Instablogs made a presentation about advantages of social media networks in business environment, while Anit Maheshwari, CEO Instablogs, anchored an interactive session about the future of media.

Sukhmani Singh, a new media expert, spoke about the advantages of online media while Dhananjay Ahluwalia of Himalayan Mountain Biking expressed views about new media and its advantages for a start-up. Senior journalist Prakash Lohumi expressed views about convergence of media.

Participants at the end of the workshop

In the month of June, when we are in the middle of a calendar year and almost one quarter into the financial year, the above subject is absurd. We are certainly behind schedule, but trying to catch up with our counterparts in the social sector and the corporate world.

This year in Himachal is crucial for us. While moving to Shimla, I had made a promise to myself, that I will be giving 3 years to establish Voice of Himachal. If this does not happen then I will quietly pack my bags and move out. Well I will be completing 2 years of my work in HP. Last year we registered as a not for profit society and have continued to operate and run HimVani from our pockets. We did few campaigns for our associate NGO’s in the last 2 years, however this year we want to go whole hog in our Development agenda.

We have defined for ourselves 4 thematic areas to work on this year and they are:

1.    Adapting to climate change
2.    Livelihoods promotion
3.    Youth and Entrepreneurship
4.    Information and Communication Technologies for Development

The programs which we have outlined for this year are:

1. Farmer awareness camps on climate change
Theme: Adapting to climate change

Climate change is an inevitable phenomenon which is going to effect every individual and more so the farmers whose livelihoods are directly linked to climatic conditions. We are already seeing the apple belt shifting upwards towards Spiti due to rising temperatures. Rajgarh valley which once used to be apple belt is not devoid of any apple cultivation. This will certainly bring up livelihoods issues for farmers in the near future. In this context, VOH in partnership with Indian Society for Agribusiness Professionals (ISAP) plans to conduct Farmer Awareness Programs in the rural areas of the state to make the farmers aware of the climatic changes and how they can start adapting to such changes. We plan to cover 500 farmers this year through this program.

2. Pine needle handicrafts project
Theme: Livelihoods promotion

For creating a sustainable source of livelihoods in the rural areas it is necessary that multiple sources of income generation are explored. Other then the agriculture sector, VOH this year will aim to catalyse a social enterprise, in the non – farm sector. This enterprise will focus on producing handicraft out of Pine needles widely available in Himachal Pradesh. For this purpose VOH in partnership with Kangra Mahila Sabha (KMS) will setup a Women’s Cooperative in District Kangra and a marketing company to promote the goods produced by the cooperative. Training of 100 women in this new craft form has already begun in Kangra. In addition we will bring in advisors and technical support from organisations such as BASIX to help us accelerate the implementation of the project.

3. Reader & Donor sponsored Journalism
Theme: ICT4D

HimVani.com has completed more then 3 years of successful online journalism. This year we plan to hire 2 full time professional who share the same ethos and values as we do. We want individuals who are willing to travel deep into the corners of state, work with our partner NGOs and bring out stories which generate debate and opinions. In addition HimVani newsletter in PDF and print version will be publishing to be circulated amongst the people and institutions which matter.  Through this work we hope to generate a body of work which can feed our intelligentsia and our decision makers.

4. Barcamp movement
Theme: Youth and Entrepreneurship

A Barcamp is an informal event where every participant has to come prepared with an Idea to Share. Such camps are being organised all across the world to bring people together around ideas. The first Barcamp in Himachal being organised on 28th June 2009, hopes to bring together 100 odd people in Shimla from Himachal as well as other innovation hubs in the country. The focus of this camp is Technology and Entrepreneurship.

We hope that Barcamp in Himachal will give a platform to first generation entrepreneurs in the state to talk about their stories and share them with an audience consisting of students, professionals and entrepreneurs. The idea behind this event is to create a networking forum where professionals can come together on an annual or a biannual basis and interact and get to know each other.

Who knows such interactions may lead to germination of new ideas, seeding of initiatives and building up of an ecosystem to support new enterprises in our hill state.

5. Blood Donation Camps
Theme: Youth

Targeted at youth, this project is aimed at involving the youth in voluntary blood donation movement in the state. WHO guidelines suggest that the total number of units collected in a year by a blood bank representing a particular area should be at least 1% of the  of population being served by that blood bank. Also the health of a donor is very important in maintaining the quality of the blood being collected.. However the blood banks in the state fail to collect even half the requirement of blood annually. Therefore this project aims to target people between the age group of 18 to 30. Two components to be covered in this project are

6. Awareness camps about Voluntary Blood Donations
Theme: Blood donation camps

On an average such a camp in an urban area will cost Rs 7000/- and in rural areas such camps will cost approximately Rs 12,000/-. Also we would like to experiment with various models to keep the cost of acquiring a donor’s to as low as possible so as to effectively utilise the donations we receive generously.

7. Scholarship’s for higher education of meritorious students
Theme: Youth

VOH this year will impart scholarships to meritorious students with economically disadvantaged backgrounds so as to give them an opportunity to continue their higher education. For this initiative VOH is partnering with Youth Enlightening the Society (YES) an NGO registered by few students in Shimla. The scholarships will be given after due diligence checks to done by volunteers of YES. In addition VOH, will partner with Prerna a Bangalore based NGO which runs a similar program in Karnataka to learn from them and adapt their best practices for Himachal Pradesh.

Resource mobilisation

To implement all the above programs in an effective manner we require a funding support of Rs 15 Lakh for this year. We hope to raise this money through donations, small grants from the government, donor agencies and cross subsidies from our partner NGO’s. The project wise break-up is as follows:

Heads Cost (Rs)
Farmer awareness programs                                                                   250000
Pine needle handicrafts project                                                              320000
Reader & Donor sponsored Journalism                                              260000
Barcamp movement                                                                                    70000
Blood Donation Camps                                                                               360000
Scholarship’s for higher education of meritorious students      180000
Total                                                                                                                 1500000

Appeal

All of the above mentioned work will not be possible without like minded individuals coming together to support this initiative. We hope to associate with individuals who not only support us with money but also volunteer to help us raise funds through their network of friends and family.

Carpe diem !

Varun

Shimla: Hospitals in Shimla have been facing severe shortage of blood, but a collective effort made by voluntary organizations like Voice of Himachal (VOH), Umang Foundation for Thalassemic Children and Youth Enlightening the Society (YES) and also the State AIDS Control Society in holding a blood donation camp at the Ridge has once again reiterated that mass movement is the only way out to tackle the problem.

Ninety units of blood were donation at the camp, with many tourists, including students from Chandigarh and Punjab. too pitching in for the cause. Participants included nine women and 41 first-time donors.

“We are happy that the tourists utilized their holidays well enough to contribute towards common good,” said VOH general secretary Varun Rattan Singh, Umang president Ajai Srivastava and YES president Akarshaan Chauhan, in a joint statement issued here. Project Director, HP State AIDS Control Society, Dr Sulaxna Puri said people should be made aware of the seriousness of blood shortage in hospitals to make them volunteer for the good cause.

To initiate quick response to blood shortage in the future, VOH also launched an online registration facility for voluntary blood donors on their website www.himvani.com to create an online database that would be available online and can be used by anyone at anytime.

In another camp held in Kasumpti area of Shimla, religious organizations responded to the call of blood shortage at IGMCH and collected 26 units of blood, said Balram Sharma organizer of the camp.
“Blood Bank at the IGMC hospital is reeling under severe shortage of blood and such initiatives by the society are very helpful in meeting the shortage”, said Dr. M.L. Kaushal, in-charge of blood bank at IGMCH. A total of 116 unit was replenished to IGMCH Blood Bank.

Keeping in view the severe shortage of blood in the blood banks of the city, including Indira Gandhi Medical College Blood Bank, Voice of Himachal, a national level society with a mandate to work for the development of Himachal Pradesh through promotion of social entrepreneurship, will organize a voluntary blood donation camp on February 22 (Sunday) at Hawa Ghar on the The Ridge in Shimla. The camp will begin at 10.30 a.m. The camp is being organised in association with Umang Foundation and Youth Enlightening The Society (YES).

Besides the voluntary blood donation, this camp is being marked by a slogan writing contest and a unique online registration campaign to register blood donors in the state. Those interested in donating blood can visit the website www.himvani.com and fill-in their contact details along with the blood group. Himvani is a non-profit citizen journalism website being managed by the Voice of Himachal Group and is devoted to generating public debate on the developmental issues concerning Himachal.

The information on blood donors shall be freely available to all citizens and can be accessed by the needy in time of need. Also, aimed especially at the youth, the online slogan writing contest on blood donation is also being organised on this occasion. Entries for the slogan contest can be submitted online at the website Himvani.com. The winner will be selected by communication experts.

In a statement issued here today the convener of the camp Varun Rattan Singh said that besides helping the patients in need of blood, the camp also aims at inculcating in citizens selfless service for the betterment of the people of the state. He appealed to all citizens to come forward for this noble cause of donating blood and share the responsibility to give back to the humanity.