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A Voice For the Voiceless

The Advocacy Project helps marginalized communities to tell their story, claim their rights and produce social change. Since 1998, AP has supported 117 community-based organizations in 52 countries.

Read more about AP partners who have produced social change.

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Partners > Asia > Chintan Environme...

Chintan Environmental Action Group

 


Chintan’s mission is to facilitate the participation of citizens in the empowerment of their communities and to advocate for local and national policies that ensure social equity and environmental safeguarding.



The report, 'Cooling Agents,' was released in December 2009 by the Delhi-based Chintan Environmental Action and Research Group in partnership with The Advocacy Project (AP), at the climate summit in Copenhagen. It is the first attempt to quantify the impact of informal recycling on climate change in India.

Read the summary of the report.

Read the full report:

Cooling Agents: An Analysis of Climate Change Mitigation by the Informal Recycling Sector in India

A brief introduction to 2009 Peace Fellow Ted Mathys and Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group

Chintan runs a small recycling center on the outskirts of Delhi, India, handling upwards of 800 kilograms of waste per day. Many of the employees at the unit are wastepickers from the local area.

Each week, Chintan meets with wastepicker communities around Delhi to hear their concerns, inform them of key legislation and policy, and discuss how to proceed with their campaigns.

Watch more video profiles collected by 2008 AP Peace Fellow Paul Colombini.








See photos of wastepickers by 2008 Peace Fellow Mackenzie Berg.

• Provides the kabari (junk dealers) with recycling licenses. 
• Halts the capital intensive privatization of municipal solid waste. 
• Protects the informal waste recycling sector by amending the Municipal Solid Waste Rules.
• Provides informal and formal education opportunities for children that enable them to successfully transition from child laborers to full time students who have equal opportunities in life. Chintan runs four learning centers in Delhi, reaching out to about 300 children associated with waste picking. Many of the children have joined mainstream schools in the last two years.
• Chintan recently signed a new contract with New Delhi Municipal Council for waste collection in over 50,000 households which will be operated by a collective of local wastepickers.

• Press Releases

Chintan publishes press releases, available on its website.

• Blogs

• Newswire

                Read Paul Colombini's first-hand account of his work in India.

• Home Page Features

Privatizating Waste Collection Puts India's Waste-Pickers at a Disadvantage (April 3, 2008)
Washington, DC: The government of Delhi has undermined recycling by privatizing waste collection in Delhi, according to a leading Indian environmental leader. Bharati Chaturvedi, Founder and Director of the Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group, a Delhi-based advocacy group and AP partner, told a recent meeting at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington that community-based recyclers, also known as waste-pickers (left), typically dispose of up to 60 percent of the waste in Delhi. Privatization has deepened poverty among waste-pickers and reduced garbage collection by two thirds. Visit the Chintan partner page to find out more on Chintan's campaigns, including an effort to get young children out of waste-picking and into school.




August 7, 2008
The Wastepickers of Delhi
Institute for Policy Studies

July 2008
The Wastepickers of Delhi
Mother Jones

January 2008
Why Waste a Chance? (by Bharati Chaturvedi, Director of Chintan)
Down to Earth

November 15, 2007
India's Ragpickers: Scavenger Hunt
The Economist

September 27, 2007
Picking Up Trash by Hand, and Yearning for Dignity
The New York Times

For more, visit Chintan's website.

• The Alliance for Waste Management
• Collaborative Working Group on Waste Management
• The Conference of Asian Foundations and Organizations
• The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
• The International POPs Elimination Network
• The National Campaign for the Unorganized Sector
• Sanhja Manch- a forum of grassroots groups and individuals working with the urban poor in Delhi

• Environmental Education: Chintan has been able to impact policy shifts. One example is the inclusion of wastepickers in the National Environmental Policy 2006.

Contact:
238 Sidhartha Enclave
New Delhi - 110014
Tel:+91-11-46574171, 46574172, 46574173
Fax:+91-11-46574174
Email Chintan

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