By Vrinda Saxena
Imagine the astonishment when an erstwhile village infamous for its criminal reputation suddenly welcomes outsiders, all bedecked in bright colours, in the remotest part of Haryana. Kherla village in the Nuh, formerly Mewat district, is all set to transform into a tourist attraction thanks to an urban initiative.
Taking the cue from the rainbow themed villages in Indonesia and Santorini in Greece, members of MNCs in Gurgaon started the ‘Donate an Hour’ campaign, in which they spend time after work and on weekends covering walls with paintings. Of the 500 houses in the village, 20 are painted. While some walls depict bright stars, some show birds flying out of their cages, aptly symbolizing breaking boundaries and restricting shackles, while reaching their full potential. The paintings very often resonate with the same spirit as that of the campaign’s brainchild.
About the campaign
The DoaR campaign, as it is called, has begun in the village Kherla in 2017 because of general feasibility, as it is connected with the highway and is a 90-minute drive from Delhi and an hour from Gurgaon.
What is fascinating is that these drawings on the walls are made by residents with each family purchasing their own paint. Volunteers from DoaR and some youngsters helped those unable to paint. Initially, there was reluctance on the part of residents about the project. Factors of attribution were linked to economic factors since spending on decoration seemed futile to many who earn only quite meagerly. The first leg of work began on December 20th, 2017 and was completed by January 26th, when it was due for the inauguration.
Making Kherla sustainable
The broader vision of the project encompasses objectives like clean-up of the villages, which could result in the creation of better living conditions for locals in high-crime districts, promotion of tourism, local crafts to generate employment opportunities and smart-classes by volunteers to provide quality education to local students.
Additionally, if all remains well, other activities will soon be open for visitors to enjoy such as hen-catching, goat-tours, cow dung toy making, selfie rides with decorated bicycles and traditional clothes along with trekking. The idea is to create a wholistic tourist experience, replete with homemade food by locals, a guided tour of Rangeela Kherla, the area demonstrating the painted walls, and local handicrafts, inter-alia, to generate revenue through tourism.
Mewat deputy commissioner Ashok Kumar said, “It is a great joint effort of the district administration, the panchayat, villagers, and the NGO. We are planning to change the look of the Gurgaon-Alwar highway where all houses along the main road will be painted similarly.”
Meenakshi Singh, founder, DoaR, said that they were initially called by officials on board to improve the standard of education, however, they realized that this backwardness was “not due to lack of education, but lack of opportunities”. Singh says that the project was then shifted to creation of employment by means of tourism, using art that can be a major crowd puller.
Now the integrated initiative is taking strident steps towards accomplishing all goals. The plan now is to set up stalls of food, handicrafts and other consumer goods, if footfall increases. Soon, the village of criminals will have a more than favourable employment rate, credits to this endeavour.
Featured Image Source: Visual Hunt
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