grantees » Bolai Singh

Bolai is from a tiny village in Manipur, which is one of the most under-developed states of India. He has always been very motivated to provide knowledge to others to improve their living conditions within an environmentally sustainable framework. As a result, he helped found the Community Development Organization (CDO) in Manipur, with “an objective to initiate development activities with the people’s participation”.  As the General Secretary of CDO, Bolai has extensive experience in lobbying and education both at rural, local, and policy-making levels for a sustainable environment. He has been particularly active in watershed management designed to preserve and restore ecological assets for the generations to come, as well as  in pursuing the transformation from chemical to organic agriculture for sustained food production.

With the JWH initiative grant, Bolai pursued an intensive year of education. He completed 6 internships and numerous independent courses. Overall, ”[they]  really helped me hone my expertise in prudent management of waste materials, water and environment,  promotion of sustainable agriculture for rural development and food security, conservation of biodiversity and natural resources, preservation of wetlands and mountain ecosystems, promotion of agro-forestry and forest farming.” He also engaged in an independent library research to support his studies. Whilst preparing for and attending ecological conferences, he gained knowledge and practice in academic reporting formats and especially in public speaking. He now no longer has to rely upon expensive external experts for his programme projections. His impressively holistic education was often set back by political instability, poor public transportation systems and the sheer difficulty of such an intensive year of education, but Bolai firmly believes that “learning has no limits”, and consequently feels “it has plucked up my courage […] to transfer my knowledge to the interested people to get them involved in the initiative of protection of the environment”.