GHE selected 30 women from over 15 remote villages of Ladakh for commencing this project. All of them underwent an intensive training in Leh on the basics of astronomy and using telescopes and how they can leverage one of their most valuable assets (clear night skies) as a tool for creating new revenue streams for their communities.
Now the first telescope has been installed in the village of Mann – where the trained locals have been conducting sky gazing sessions with the telescope interspersed with the local folktales of the night skies. We are working closely with other communities for remaining installations. The initiative has had an overwhelming response from the local community – the telescope facility has already attracted over 30 tourists in the last 5 days