Help Parengtar Keep Kholey Dai Festival Alive
Kholey Dai Festival is an annual community-led, zero-waste harvest festival in Parengtar, Kalimpong. Revived in 2021 by local youth and elders, it celebrates farming, folk arts, and indigenous traditions while creating sustainable livelihoods through community-based tourism. Rooted in conservation, youth empowerment, and cultural pride, Kholey Dai is more than a festival—it is a movement of resilience and hope for the Himalayas.
Why We Need Your Support
Kholey Dai is now in its 5th year, yet it continues to survive with very limited long-term funding. While most festivals of this scale rely on brand sponsorships, we have deliberately chosen not to take this route. Associating with such brands risks diluting our values. Kholey Dai was never meant to be a commercial event. It was born to remain rooted in culture, tradition, and sustainability.
This integrity, however, comes at a cost. Parengtar falls in a shadow zone of social impact funding—a neglected area where access to resources, infrastructure, and support is scarce. Very few long-term investments reach communities like ours, despite the potential to become models of sustainable rural development. To grow responsibly, without losing our essence, we need individuals and conscious supporters who believe in what we are building.

The Story of Kholey Dai
Parengtar, a small plateau village near the Bhutan border, once struggled with poverty, migration, and a lack of basic development. Yet it carried a rich tradition of harvest, where everyone came together to complete the work by singing, dancing, and sharing bowls of kholey, a nourishing porridge from the new crop. Over time, these practices faded, weakening both cultural pride and the sense of community.
In 2021, the people of Parengtar, led by youth and elders, revived this heritage as the Kholey Dai Festival, a three-day, zero-waste, community-run harvest festival now celebrated every December. What began as a modest gathering has grown into a movement of resilience and pride, drawing thousands each year while remaining entirely community-owned, not commercialised.
The festival stands firmly on the pillars of conservation, youth empowerment, agriculture, sustainable livelihoods, indigenous practices, and community-based tourism. It celebrates farming, folk arts, and oral histories; creates training and leadership pathways for young people; revives indigenous seeds and food traditions; and strengthens livelihoods through homestays, eco-tourism, and local enterprises. Today, Kholey Dai is also creating additional livelihood opportunities, making it promising for local youth to return home, sustain agro-based practices like farming, and earn dignified incomes through rural tourism activities.
United under the Parengtar Nawlo Umang Welfare Society, the whole village—youth as organisers, elders as wisdom keepers, and women and men as cultural stewards—works together to keep Kholey Dai alive.
 Impact So Far (2021–2024)
- 3,500+ visitors annually, boosting the local economy and cross-cultural movement
- ₹9 lakh+ earned yearly, about 20% of an average household’s income, sustaining 40+ homestays and 30+ food and craft stalls
- 90+ households engaged, with the festival becoming whole-village owned and led
- 90+ youth trained and mobilised as eco-stewards, organisers, and cultural leaders
- 20+ cultural groups and 15+ folk artists from India and Nepal showcased each year, reviving music, dance, and storytelling
- 15+ workshops annually by organisations from across the region focusing on art, farming, and environment
- 3 tonnes of waste diverted each year, equal to the waste of 150 families, making Kholey Dai a living zero-waste model
- 50+ partnerships with NGOs, artists, government, and small businesses, building sustainable networks for the region
Vision
By 2030, Parengtar and neighbouring Himalayan villages will thrive as resilient, self-sustaining communities where:
- Culture, ecology, and livelihoods are interwoven and actively lived
-  Development is community-led by farmers, youth, and women
- Cultural pride and ecological stewardship restore balance with nature
- Youth leadership and sustainable enterprises create dignified local futures
- The region stands as a model for rural development, inspiring Himalayan communities and beyond


Conserving Folk Arts & Artists through Kholeydai

- Kholeydai is a rare platform that is reviving dying folk traditions of the Eastern Himalayas.
- Every year, the festival curates authentic folk music, dance, and rituals that are vanishing from everyday life.
- Artists, who are often under-recognized and underpaid, receive fair compensation and visibility here.
- For younger generations, Kholeydai becomes a bridge to their roots — experiencing art forms that might otherwise disappear.
- Supporting Kholeydai means safeguarding intangible heritage and ensuring folk artists can continue their practice with dignity.

How You Can Help
- Provide fair fees and stipends for folk artists and cultural performers.
- Cover travel, accommodation, and logistics for performers.
- Support the documentation and archiving of folk songs, dances, and oral traditions showcased at the festival.

- Artist Fees & Stipends: ₹1,00,000
- Artist Logistics (Travel, Food, Accommodation): ₹70,000
- Documentation & Archiving (Audio-Visual, Editing, Publishing): ₹30,000
- Total: ₹2,00,000