Tel. +44 (0)1273 600030 (UK)
Community:
Employment - We have hired most of our staff locally and have supported their personal and professional development with training on a variety of aspects of hospitality. Providing employment in these remote areas supports the local economy, but in addition, our staff work to support local community welfare. From each Ladakh village that we work with, we employ at least one member of each family covering a variety of skills – porters, housekeeping, and support guiding. We have been able to prevent many Ladakhi’s from moving away from their homes and families to search for employment on the plains, by being engaged with Shakti.
Local Sourcing - We purchase as much of our food, materials and general supplies locally. For every dollar spent by our guests as much as 45 cents remains in the local economy supporting local crafts and occupations, the remainder remains in India. We are committed to working with our local communities to support the local economy and by generating direct income to the villagers without compromising their lifestyle and way of living. This means they do not need to resort to high volume, high impact tourism that would degrade their environment and way of life. Specific examples would be using the local weavers (wood) who make us our rubbish bins for the bedrooms, floor matting, and baskets for the bedrooms and bathrooms. We bring our drinks and cheeses from Delhi, but other than that, we source all other produce from the local Ladakhi markets, having ensured a safe and reliable produce line with each market seller.
Buildings & Infrastructure - According to the location, we either commission new buildings that leave only the lightest footprint on their setting or we breathe new life into existing, traditional village houses. We did not want or need to build new structures in Ladakh – the Tibetan-Ladakhi architecture is not only spacious and solid, but also aesthetically pleasing.
Village Development - In order to respect local customs, we ask any guests who may wish to offer gifts or money, to do so through a dedicated fund. 100% of guest contributions received in this way go to recipients, in a way that reflects local needs, customs and value systems. We have recently created a dedicated Trust Fund to enable a proportion of Shakti revenues and any guest or third party donations to be used to support local projects and development. We encourage the Village heads to guide the guests around the villages of Stok, Taru and Nimoo, as well as encouraging other villagers to interact with the clients. This has had a noticeable knock on affect, by the children being proud of their schools, teachers proud to welcome the visitors to classes, villagers of all ages to show off their skills, hobbies and interests.
Codes of Conduct - We give our Codes of conduct document to each client on arrival in Ladakh, so that they can adhere to our principles throughout their stay – we stress the importance of being sensitive to local cultures, dressing appropriately, not tipping or giving gifts to the children, and also how to behave in the monasteries with the monks.
Environment:
Controlled impact - Each of our operations is on a very small scale – and while that limits the number of guests we can receive, we prefer it that way, so we don’t impose ourselves too much on our surroundings, the local communities and resources. Our approach is designed to balance the benefits of local tourism with the ability of guests to experience the very remote and unusual locations in which we operate. We can only take a maximum group size of 6 in each house, and prefer to keep the houses exclusive to each party. Many operators would like us to have multiple houses so that they can ferry large tourist groups to the areas, but this would then be out of our control, and we would not be able to manage the execution of each experience, ensuring that codes of conduct are maintained.
Waste Management - Any waste from our properties is separated with food waste being used as animal feed in the locality. There is no recycling infrastructure in the areas that we operate but, where available, our non recyclable waste is sorted and provided for recycling. In addition to our no litter policy for staff and guests, our staff are involved in the collection of litter and working with villagers to reduce litter.
Electricity Generation - We use sustainable sources for our electricity supply. In our village houses and office we use a combination of local electricity supply and candles.
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