Jodie, The Garbage Girl!

This British national is a real crusader who had arrived in India in 2009 and it was by chance that she became what she is today. She had just come to visit two Tibetan children she sponsors at the Children’s Village in McLeodganj and that’s when she fell in love with this place and decided to settle down in the neighbouring Bhagsu region. That’s from where her story starts. When she saw piles of garbage all around, she thought of doing something about it.

In 2009 she launched a massive clean-up operation and people started calling her ‘Garbage Girl’. She now travels from village to village cleaning up roads and nearby areas with the help of volunteers who have joined the movement with her. She is now spearheading, Mountain Cleaners, a voluntary group involved in various environmental projects in Himachal Pradesh, India. The Mountain Cleaners are a group of volunteers dedicated to cleaning up India, little by little through a combination of direct action, liaison and awareness-raising.

Meet Jodie Underhill, the girl who has made a difference. She talks to The Sip of Life Moderator, Amit Roy, sharing what brought her here and why she decided to stay on.

SOL: You are popularly called the ‘garbage girl’. Tell us how being a British national, you thought of working for a cause in India?

JODIE: I wanted to come to India for as long as I can remember. I came to travel and to volunteer for the Tibetan Childrens Village as I sponsor two Tibetan children. I originally stayed in McleodGanj but when I came to Bhagsu for a day, I fell in love with the place and decided to move here. And believe me, first impressions have been the same all over India, a beautiful place but too much garbage everywhere. The garbage discarded everywhere troubled me every single day so and I decided to do something about it.

SOL: What is ‘Mountain Cleaners’ all about? When did it come into being?

JODIE: I started to organize mass clean ups in March 2009 but soon realized that just cleaning up wasn’t going to solve the problem. We had to find a long term solution. I became known as Garbage Girl and everywhere I went people told me about a place that needed cleaning. One place that was repeatedly mentioned was Triund, a four hour hike from Mcleod Ganj so I decided to take gloves, bags and volunteers up there to see what we could do. This was start of the Mountain Cleaners.

SOL: You were given a green award by the Himachal Pradesh government for the voluntary organisation. How did you and your family react to it?

JODIE: The award was from the Centre of Media Studies and was supposed to be presented by Prem Kumar Dhumal. He cancelled on the day and was replaced by Gulab Singh Thakur. It was such an honour to receive the award and I was over the moon. It was a very proud day for myself and the other long term volunteers who were helping at the time Claire Jabra and Karl Bennett.  My family don’t really have much interest in what I’m doing in India.

SOL: How does your concept of cleaning the hills work in Dharamshala?

JODIE: It’s thanks to the hard work of hundreds of volunteers and the generosity of the people that donate to support our work. We offer a variety of voluntary opportunities and believe in addressing the situation by doing something no matter how small instead of just sitting back and waiting for others or the government to take action. Education is paramount and has to be combined with clean-up activities for the outcomes to be long lasting.

SOL: You had recently in August taken up a project to set up waste disposal pits in the heights of Chamba district ahead of a fortnight-long Manimahesh pilgrimage. What was it all about?

JODIE: We had a team at Manimahesh for nearly six weeks. It’s been our toughest project to date. We have a project plan for Yatra’s but need large amounts of volunteers to make it actually work. This was our second year running a clean-up campaign at the Manimahesh Yatra. There were disappointments and difficulties from the beginning when only a tiny percentage of the confirmed volunteers actually showed up. Of the 109 people confirmed on Facebook only 5 of them came. It wasn’t all doom and gloom though, in total we had 20 volunteers some coming from as far as Kerala plus four MC staff who all worked really hard to make up for the lack of numbers. We employed two women to work in Hadsar and they worked well alongside Sulabh International making massive improvements in the cleanliness of the area.

SOL: How do you plan taking your cause forward? Do you plan taking it to other parts of India as well?

JODIE: We need funding to allow us to achieve our full potential. We are in the process of registering Mountain Cleaners as trust and will be registering a section 25 company (not for profit) by the end of the year. We are doing beach clean ups in Goa for a month starting mid December and have been asked to set up a waste management plan at a National Marine Park in Indonesia. We hope that our initiatives can be rolled out all across India one day.

Get involved by visiting Mountain Cleaners at http://www.mountaincleaners.org/