RCHSS

RCHSS became officially recognized in 1990, but the history of the organization began a decade earlier when the need for change in the local community became strikingly apparent. In 1980, Mr. Shibesh Das returned to his village, Eklakhi, as a high school language teacher after attending college and three years if government service in Malda. Upon arrival in Eklakhi, he was immediately disheartened by the barren, treeless land and recognized that his hometown was in need of help. His students, all from the surrounding areas, were the children of poor, marginalized farming families of tribal and Indo-Mongol ancestry. These families' struggles came from the fact that although they had land, they were not able to yield a crop surplus and most experienced agricultural losses due to the aridity of the land. Recognizing this agricultural challenge and observing the high dropout rate among students at his high school, Mr. Das realized that the local community was in crisis, which in turn represented a personal crisis for him. He realized that he must go beyond teaching the standard curriculum and face these broader problems directly with his students. Facing a lack of enthusiasm on the behalf of his colleagues, Mr. Das alone organized a group of students representing over 40 nearby villages, and together they began a quest for social development. In their first-round initiative, this group was able to mobilize the people of the nearby villages to begin planting trees on their land. The project expanded to target four of the fifteen blocks comprising the Malda region, focusing on those which were the aridest, and thereby presented the greatest challenges for cultivation.

 

Through an information-exchange partnership with Children of the Green Earth, an environmental initiative based out of Portland, Oregon, USA, RCHSS was able to obtain a broader scope of relevant knowledge to assist them on their journey. Continued communication with Ms. Dorothy P. Craig of Oregon ensured a steady influx of new ideas regarding current worldwide environmental movements, which were then organized, translated into Bengali, and distributed to the local community by RCHSS members. The fist notable outcome of this information exchange was the formation of the Sukumar Program. Named for the acclaimed Bengali poet and storyteller, Sukumar Roy, the Sukumar program focused on reforestation through the creation of small woodlands throughout 40 villages. Over the course of this program, hundreds of thousands of fruit and timber trees were planted, and slowly the area became lush and green.

 

On July 29, 1986, the Shalbona Forest gathering was held to develop future agricultural and environmental strategies. In attendance were local farmers and tribal women, as well as students from both the local schools and the city of Malda. The outcomes of this unique meeting were the development of more plantations, a higher degree of organization among the villagers, and early facilitation of greater initiatives to re-green the area.

 

In 1987, disaster struck Eklakhi when a devastating flood swept over the region. The relief response came through the joint initiatives of administrative personnel and the local youth. Still, the absence of community health care, disaster response teams, and strong community organization were painfully apparent. The lapse in these areas began in 1983 when the local source of healthcare, the Rajadighi Christian Hospital, shutdown after serving the community for 35 years. Established in 1948 by Danish Christian missionary Dr. Else Hoilund, affectionately called Dr. "Didi" meaning "elder sister" by the locals, this institution not only provided much-needed health services but also served as inspiration for community members to develop strong work ethics and dedicate their lives to serving others. When Dr. Didi left Rajadighi, the hospital declined under poor leadership in her absence and eventually closed. This marked an era of vulnerability amongst the villagers, due to poor leadership and a lack of healthcare. Dr. Didi maintained correspondence with Mr. Das after her departure from Rajadighi, encouraging him to create positive changes in the local society. These open lines of communication with Dr. Didi in Denmark and Ms. Dorothy P. Craig in the United States were a major source of inspiration as contemporary international ideas poured into the community. The call for the resurgence of community infrastructure was finally responded to on October 30, 1988, when Mr. Shibesh Das, along with his current and former students, unified their final resolution to form RCHSS, the first community-founded group to utilize modern international ideas to organize villagers and mobilize change. RCHSS became a legally sanctioned entity on June 7, 1990.