It's a woman's village!
A few years ago, people in the arid village of Piplantri in Rajasthan didn’t welcome the birth of girls. A girl child was considered a burden since her parents had to bear the cost of her wedding and her safety always worried them.
All this changed in 2006 when the then sarpanch of Piplantri, Shyam Sundar Paliwal, lost his 17-year-old daughter Kiran to dehydration. To channel his grief, he planted trees in her memory and nurtured them. He then decided to make Piplantri change its attitude towards women and began a campaign to plant 111 trees for the birth of every girl child in the village. (The number 111 is considered auspicious by some. Besides, 1+1+1 symbolises the three main stakeholders of the campaign—the girl child, her mother and her father.)
The campaign has been a phenomenal success. After planting the saplings, the parents sign an affidavit stating they will educate their daughter and won’t marry her off before she turns 18. Also, for each girl, the villagers open a fixed deposit account with 31,000 that she can access when she becomes 18. The girls grow up treating the trees planted in their name as family members and tie a rakhi to them during the annual environmental festival conducted by the villagers.
So far, around 1,00,000 trees have been planted in the name of the girls and 25,000 more trees have been planted under other environmental initiatives. The trees range from mango and gooseberry to sandalwood, neem, peepal and bamboo. Over the years, the community also carried out water harvesting and restoration efforts. All this has positively impacted the ecological balance of Piplantri. The water table has greatly improved and birds and animals which had nearly disappeared have returned in larger numbers.
Piplantri’s green efforts have also generated income for the residents. They have set up women’s co-operatives that create food items, juices, gels, etc. from aloe vera, to sell in the village. They now plan to create products from gooseberries, bamboo and honey.
With its unique tree planting campaign, Piplantri addresses three major social issues—gender equality, environmentalism and employment generation. It is a solution that can be replicated anywhere in the world.
