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MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice.

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Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group

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

• Mission
• Advocacy
• Social Change
• Information/News from Chintan
  • Press Releases
• Dissemination
  • In the Media Highlights
• Networking
• Institution Building

  

Mission

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.

Advocacy

• 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.

Social Change

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

Information/ News from Chintan

• Press Releases

Chintan publishes press releases, available on its website.

Dissemination

• In the Media Highlights

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.

• 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. AP has recruited two Peace Fellows to work with Chintan this summer, Paul Colombini and Mackenzie Berg. 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.

Networking

• 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

Institution Building

• 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.

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