The Voice of the Kosi

The River Voices Programme was set up by Praxis UK with the aim to raise awareness on the importance of rivers for tackling global poverty

• Particularly among young people…
• Of river related development issues
• Of global actions that need to be taken to address them
• Of personal actions you can take to protect them

As a start, there was a pilot expedition in April 2009, along the Kosi River in North India. As part of this expedition - The Voice of the Kosi, scouts went down this river to explore river related development issues and created their own youth manifesto.

The scouts on board the boat which took them along the Kosi river

They travelled down the river and stopped at nine villages along the way, to interact with other scout groups and young people to find out how they had been affected by floods and answers to these questions:

1. What do young people think is good about the river? How do young people depend upon the river?
2. What’s best and worst about the river?
3. What are all the different things the river gives you?
4. What are the most important things the river gives you?
5. What changes would young people like to see made to the river?
6. What actions would youth like people to take?

They collected all this information and then developed a youth manifesto which can be presented at different forums in India so that the issues of the youth along the river are resolved at the earliest.


One of the large scale projects that Praxis UK is involved with as part of River Voices is the Voice of the Nile. This is a partnership project between international organisations concerned about the sustainable development of rivers, and development organisations in the Nile basin. Its overall aim is the sustainable and equitable development of the Nile.

It will do this through a process of building the capacity of the most vulnerable communities along the Nile to articulate their hopes and fears for the future, and so help inform local and regional policies regarding its future development. In 2010, an expedition made by representatives from each of the ten Nile basin countries, will highlight to the international community the common issues faced by the poorest people along the Nile, and many others rivers throughout the world.

The guiding principles of the project are defined by the motto: one river, one vision, one voice.

Click here read more about the River Voices project and its ongoing Voice of The Nile.