The Story
Over the last five years, tourism in Arunachal Pradesh has flourished, opening up its doors to the world. Undisputedly, tourism is amongst the most effective tools to preserve and document local culture, build ecological awareness and support local communities. However, without appropriate infrastructure and systems in place, it can also change the cultural and ecological fabric of a community. Some of it once lost, may never come back.
We believe the solution lies in community driven responsible tourism, and are building a model that will help us achieve this vision for Sangti over the next 5 years. Aspects of this vision include waste management, renewable energy, biodiversity conservation, natural farming and water management. With these systems in place we hope to mark Sangti as a model village in the region.
The MonYul Gathering is an annual invitation to the world to come celebrate the lunar New Year in Sangti Valley and be immersed in the cultural heritage of the Monpa. This year is the first chapter in the story of a community coming together to protect their culture, village and way of life using responsible tourism as their primary tool.
Making a difference.
This is a joint initiative of the the Sangti village spearheaded by Namgey Khandu in collaboration with Hum and Further and Beyond Foundation (North East Waste Collective).
Hum is a collective of designers who are seeking to create community driven ecologically-regenerative systems to effectively handle the growing pressures of development, tourism and urbanisation in the North East.
Further & Beyond Foundation explores cultures and facilitates self-driven sustainable development in communities by designing and implementing locally relevant and ecologically sensitive frameworks.
