The power is yours – Green Planet’eers

Greetings from SPACES!

We are finally back on our blogs after taking a bit of a hiatus. We have a lot of exciting news and programs to share.

Green Planet’eers is one such topic which we are very enthusiastic about.

To elaborate, Green Planet’eers is a gardening exercise tailored for children so that they learn both to appreciate their natural surroundings and learn about the very rich history of natural herbs and indigenous varieties that is often quickly forgotten by us.

It is an elegant mixture where children start learning by literally getting their hands dirty and how to care for and treat their natural entities around them.

We have put this theory to test at a couple of locations in Chennai and we have been super happy with the results and the fervor shown by both the teachers and the students.

Here are a couple of snapshots taken at different locations where we have established such herbal and veggie patches.

herbal patch at AMM , kotturpuram – by SPACES

recycled terrace veggie garden – at shelter homes ,redhills

recycled terrace veggie garden – Red hills – by SPACES

a view of the creeper support at redhills – by spaces

herbal garden patch at jai gopal garodia – choolaimedu -by spaces

herbal patch – CTTE perambur – by spaces

herbal garden done at AMM matriculation, kotturpuram done by SPACES

herbs around the tree at Rosary Matriculation – by SPACES

herbal garden patch at Rosary matric – done by SPACES

pathway in the model garden at sreeniketan patasala in tiruvallur

model garden at tiruvallur

rock garden at the model garden in tiruvallur

The result of creating such a space is that it automatically becomes an extension to the learning environment and often indulges the students to not just stick to what they ‘have to’ learn but what they ‘want to’. This is the essence of learning.

Childhood is filled with natural wonder and curiosity. The learning environment must reflect a classroom and outdoor space that inspires a sense of wanting to investigate, to find out and to explore” – Kathy Walker

Mad camp by spaces -at ECR

Mad camp by spaces -at ECR

Mad camp by spaces -at ECR

at AMM matriculation school

AMM matriculation school

workshop conducted by spaces at jai gopal garodia , choolaimedu

Mad camp by spaces -at ECR

at shelter homes – Red hills

At vidhya school – Medavakkam

We also believe strongly that children being our future generation could do with a bit more of nature orientation instead of staring at a screen. and we need to encourage their relationship with the environment and the experiences will emerge by themselves. These are the moments to cherish.These environments often also personalize children and helps in not molding but unfolding them.

If your institution or school is also interested in creating such a space around your learning environment, please do contact us. This could also be taken up as a CSR activity conducted by your institution or corporate. We would be happy to present and share our ideas with you. Our office no is 9840830880 or you could drop in a mail at SPACES  or text us at our Facebook link- spaces.

Herbal & Kitchen Gardens At Schools

After a short snooze, we at SPACES are back with some interesting projects that we have finished in the past few months.

We had the opportunity to work with two schools who were inspired by the idea of showing their students some common, indigenous herbs and plant varieties that were available within our vicinity. The staff at one particular school specially stressed on the point about how children were completely ignorant of these plants, their existence or their use. We hope the children have been able to gain the experience we have tried to inculcate.

At AMM Matriculation School at Kotturpuram, Chennai, the available space was just the terrace and we had taken it upon ourselves to make the best use of the area. And to be able to give the children a wholesome experience at least in terms of the different species of herbal plants and its types.

Here’s a pot shot of the entire terrace herbal garden placed by us.

Here we have our creeper section of the herbs.

Our initial stage of the miniature garden-lawn-waterbody.

For Rosary Matriculation School, since we could work on the ground, we had created for them both a kitchen and a herbal garden in the assigned plot of land.  We created a pebbled pathway in between where the students could walk through and observe the various plantations which we had labelled with their scientific and local identities. Here are a few glimpses of the same.

herbs around the tree at Rosary Matriculation – by SPACES

herbal garden patch at Rosary matric – done by SPACES

a view of the entire kitchen garden patch after the seeds are sown

bitter gourd

a close up of the vegetable creeper plant

creeper of the avarai plant

ridge gourd growing stages – peerkangai

“Seeing is believing” someone has rightly said. We hope we might have helped alter these students’ outlook a bit by introducing them to the food chain!

If you believe your school needs a concept such as this to exist ,then approach SPACES at gardeningredefined.com and get your ideas implemented through us!!

Landscaping at Egmore

Check out the pictures from the latest project undertaken by SPACES at Egmore for an Indian Overseas Bank Complex. We have always wanted to undertake spreading greenery to buildings in our city and this looks like our first step toward it. Our favorite feature is definitely the bamboo wall mount for the creeper support which also adds a little rustic look to the outside decor.

 

This time ,we thought it would add a nice touch , so we equipped all the plants with their own name boards so this could educate people about different plants and their uses, which we see everyday.

Tell us what your favorite feature was –  the vertical wall , the bamboo structure, the beautiful Rock garden in a quiet rugged corner or the beautiful Adeniums that adorn the side wall.  This list could clearly go on as i have missed a couple more unique features which you can find in the pictures. SPACES , shall be back with more pictures, until the next project.

Green notes – The Hindu

Green notes – The Hindu.

Article published on the Hindu – downtown edition March 23 , sunday !!

Green labs – define , design , sustain is a garden based curriculum designed for children and its poised to be more of a fun learning , entirely activity based! And we plan to include the community as much as possible, where we create a sense of ownership for the children by making them take care of the garden and observe and experience it. 

Very proud of the entire team who helped out .. still a long way to go. A great platform provided by BHUMI. Thankyou for the great article Liffy Thomas! 

A Peek into Green Labs!

Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.

-Nelson Mandela

We often want to attack a problem from the core, the root, the point of origin. But usually we find it difficult to get that opportunity. But universe always finds a way. 

Bhumi, when it came out with the ICUBED (B-plan competition) themed as ‘Environment’, our elation knew no bounds.We were sure we could contribute to it wisely.We knew at least the exposure of the competition would give us the confidence to pursue the idea if it was worth it. Of course what we didn’t realize is that we would actually win the whole thing. BHUMI has been materialistic in bringing the idea this far.

It was a rather significant moment when we were announced that we would be getting a one lakh rupee grant for the start-up along with bhumi volunteers to help us mobilize the idea off the ground. Our idea is basically to create a system where children and gardens go hand in hand.An activity based learning. A model garden to help children understand how nature works,and thereby applying their understanding into a garden of their own and grow out of their own hands. Where children own these gardens. So here we come to another important problem.How do we teach them the significance without having to ‘teach’ them? Since this is a habit you inculcate. This is where the community pitches in. We realized it’s not just the children who get affected, but the whole community.

It was definitely eye-opening and very liberating , the whole experience and the various stages of the competition. Starting from the very first ideation of the concept to the presentation to the budgetary constraints and finally the pilot project.I would be amiss if I didn’t mention the people involved with the project. SPACES only had a brief role in this. There were many more significant players involved with getting this idea up and running and without which we wouldn’t have reached so far. Suvasini,Uma.C, Anirudhra,Krithiga, Manigandan,Palani,Adi have all played a major role!! Thank you guys. You guys are the pillars of this project.  

So we are all geared up for the next more challenging stages of this project which has now taken a turn into real existence and ceased becoming just a project.Cheers!       

Revisit to Red Hills

Sixteen days had gone by since the group of twelve volunteers had battled it out in the terrace to equip a vegetable garden for the kids at the Shelter at Red Hills. Tentatively, we arrived at the gates , the children were busy attending Sunday Mass, and we went straight into the terrace , eager to see the results of our handicraft. There were so many doubts .. did the structures still stay strong, had the saplings grown for all the veggies, had the pandal structure stood the test of the winds.

The sight which was awaiting us was one which would rise our spirits by the double.

The children had taken care of the seeds like they were their own, everything looked healthy and was growing fine. All the structures were intact and pretty strong. happy and content, we set about with transplanting some of the tomatoes , brinjals and the chillies into separate containers thereby avoiding crowding and stunted growth.

We also removed the plastic covering underneath the bigger pots,afraid of stagnation of water.We gave them instructions to keep changing the position of the containers slightly every 2 weeks.

 

By the time we were done transplanting, the kids were done with their prayers too and were eager to come up, curious to see what the annas and the akkas were up to. We taught them how to transplant , how to water without doing excess , and how to keep cuttings of plants and propagate them like indian borage, perandai  etc

One little fellow followed my suit and started watering the plants and the rest followed.

Soon the two hours just flew by and it was time to leave and we had time for one last photo session.

 

 

Until next time. 🙂

Not Just Another Workshop!!

SPACES was fortunate enough to be invited to conduct a session on Ornamental Gardening. It was indeed a unique way of blending both the organic methods of farming and the utilization of the space available in cities. Yes , space is the most important constraint even for garden enthusiasts and that proves to be a block for setting up gardens. Sometimes this block is less physical and more of an immediate rejection without exploring the available possibilities.

This very novel effort on educating the audience on such options was conducted by SUBHAM in association with Kasturba Residents Association. The organizers did a brilliant job by roping in notable groups working toward similar goals.

There was a talk by Ms.Lakshmi Sriram madam who explained about the little details that most of us tend to worry about and these were the precise information that would go a long way in producing better, healthier produce .. and that too at our own backyard! And then the famous organic shop – Restore‘s owner Mr.Anantu gave an inspiring talk about food security and there were some innovative products, specifically Eco-pots ,designed by Mr.Vijayan and his daughter. Not to forget the informative talk about different indigenous herbs and their uses.

SPACES gave a presentation on the terrace and other recent technologies coming up among which Hydroponics and Aquaponics were topics covered. Other than that we also gave a general idea on the important things to take care while having a roof garden and the concept of vertical planters. The topics were well received and the audience were full of questions later and hopefully many would want to take up the same.  Space saving techniques have become the order of the day and we were just too happy to share our knowledge.

All these aspects added quite a bit of dimension to the normal format. And in the afternoon session, we had group discussions with each of the resource,talking about their ideas or products or basically clearing all general doubts.

The whole atmosphere ,no doubt, presented a very healthy discussion platform for creative garden enthusiasts to get more and more of a clear perspective. A great initiative by the community and SUBHAM. SPACES hopes to see next time larger audiences and much more resources coming and putting forward their ideas and innovations.

Herbal Garden for CTTE

First impressions when we entered the college – “does this place really need any work?” . Imagine the greenest campus you know of! And imagine it tastefully maintained and designed. That is the college we visited. Chevalier T.Thomas Elizabeth College for women. A college that can boast that it is completely independent and self-sufficient.

As we moved around the campus, we found out they had already taken the initiative of setting up a kitchen garden. The images of the ladies finger growing out there is still fresh in our minds. Very healthy looking and well looked after. So we were not at all worried about the herbal garden that we were going to set up. In fact they already had a few planted.. like aloes and perandai, insulin plants. But they did need a bit managing, since they were all placed pretty randomly.

And then, in spite of a few glitches on starting the project, the management had full faith in us, and our laborers did a fine job in completing the garden full of 20 odd varieties of herbs replete of name boards with information, uses and local names.

SPACES thanks the management for giving us the opportunity and for taking the initiative of maintaining a green campus and going the extra mile.

Inauguration of Eco-Club @ SPACES!!

This has taken a long time coming. I mean both the post and the timing of our new subset to SPACES!!

ECO-CLUB @ SPACES!!

When you add to the mix a group of people, of strong constitution and of sound principles, when it comes to matters relating to our surroundings,environment etc, the evolution of such a club is pretty much inevitable.

SPACES even though birthed through similar thought process, does not give the latitude to reach out to every sector of the environment , but Eco-club gives more than its share.

This is a platform established in lieu with SPACES to conduct events every month, targeting a small but significant issue. We believe , we need to change even the smaller things from its root.

This January of 2014 , a day before the Indian republic day, witnessed the inaugural event of Eco-club. 12 volunteers took the daunting task of setting up a Terrace garden of purely recycled materials and containers for a Home situated in Red Hills, Chennai. The home named aptly Shelter Homes houses children affected with HIV and provides for all their basic necessities.

There were no laborers or garden experts involved, just us a couple of relatively inexperienced youngsters not all that familiar with the hardships of physical labor nor used to it! There was a heap of soil to transport to the terrace which invariably became the first task to complete. But once we got the hang of it, and with the incredibly strong kids assisting us, there was no stopping us. Once upstairs, we divided ourselves into the planning and execution team. And one group took up making the creeper section (pandal section) and one more took to painting the containers, few more took care of making the Tyre structure for one corner again for the creepers to grow.

The kids were nothing but sweet, they raided the paints and the brushes in the morning for a session of painting the containers and the tyres apart from helping us with a soil. And later again they came over for a session with helping the Annas (brothers) with the drilling and bringing buckets of water. Some of them very curious why the money plant was in fact called the money plant 🙂 . We had a fun time explaining to the older kids on how to take care of the garden, how to tend to them and how they would be transplanted.

 

 

 

Again we had to fill in the containers with soil and sow the seeds. And name all the containers in the local dialect(tamil language), so that the kids could understand and go forward and raise their own veggies and understand. Not just the kids, even the volunteers understood a lot about gardening and everything associated with creating a kitchen garden from scratch. It was a really enriching experience.

At the end of the day , when it was all done, we were pretty proud of our handiwork, astonished at the amount of work finished in a day, dog tired, but both happy and ecstatic about what we had done.

Hopefully we had taken a tiny step toward teaching the kids, a lesson on waste management, environment awareness and the need to preserve greenery all together. If nothing at least that all hope is not lost. The lesson is not only for all those kids out there,but for everyone.

SPACES does not wish to end it here. We will be making another visit soon and hopefully our mammoth efforts will reap its benefits.

Perhaps , SPACES and Eco-Club has a purpose after all!! It does not just revolve only around gardens. This is just the beginning.

 

Vidhya School, Medavakkam – Environment Awareness Workshop

Our biggest take-away from the workshop – No matter how much you prepare, the kids shall outsmart you! 🙂 

 

So, there we were unassumingly getting ready for what was going be our best experience so far interacting with children, checking and double-checking all the things to be taken to the school for the Environment Awareness Program scheduled on the 30th of November.

When we arrived, the children had already been assembled in the long hall, easily accommodating around 150-200 students at a time. There was an atmosphere of anticipation, as we tried to get comfortable and get on stage and on with the show. This was also our first time with such a big audience. So, understandably, we went in with some butterflies,but once we found our groove, we were all able to connect with the students.

Here are some of the pot-shots from the day:

The children, clearly amused by what they were hearing! 🙂

Eager to volunteer to answer.

Uma, passionately explaining about gardening.

Time for the next batch.

Driving a point or two about chemical abuse in the form of pesticides.

Students, rapt with attention.

Shainika, having a bit of fun with the audience.

She had the toughest job, handling the older kids. 🙂 Looks like she did pretty well.

And then our most favorite section, the career possibilities.

We ventured opinions, aims, dreams and aspirations. No prize for guessing, more doctors ,engineers and scientists in the making. 🙂

But amongst all of them, remained only one soul who wanted to become an agriculturist. But it did turn out her relative was in the same field.But hey, she at least knew it was an option.

The correspondent later told us that he was approached by a student, who had asked him, sir, all this information is incredible, but seriously, how will a kid from a government school know of so many possibilities that he/she could pursue?? we were baffled at the depth of insight , that this kid had, barely out of his high school.

Below are our favorite moments. Totally unplanned and came up with it at the nick-of-the moment. We made all the kids stand up, raise their hands and take an oath.

“To save the planet. to protect  and to nurture it.”

Well, the day had just begun and we came bearing tree saplings , around 400 of them, to distribute it to the students. The school made it into a competition, an ingenious idea that, to make sure none of the tree saps were neglected.

And made all the students pose with their new-found treasure 🙂

I must stress at this point, the kids have a lot more pocket-money than we ever did, all of them flashing their high funda notes and asking for seeds worth 10 bucks. Our cashiers had a tough time sorting out the ‘change’-issues 🙂 Kudos to them though for handling all that pressure.

These two pretty ladies seemed to be deliberating for a long time, deciding which seeds to buy.

Us, getting ready for the next item on the agenda, the demo session, which included parents.And enough break time to take a few more group pics.

Uma, a force to reckon with during the demo session.

Parents , patiently hearing us out. A lot of them came and told us that they really enjoyed it and were eager to know more.

We made sure, they took a look at our posters explaining a lot of things, including, home composting, and essential herbal plants etc.

The stalls were a huge hit. We had throngs and throngs of kids and parents alike , wanting to buy us out. 🙂

Of course, at that point of time, i took over as the photographer, and it seemed, i was in demand too, of course scorned by my fellow mates, that i got the easier job. 😛 🙂 The boys and girls were more than happy to pose,proudly showing what they had bought.

And soon it was time for the bell to go off, and the school yard was absolutely teeming with children and their saps and their products. and I was in the middle of it all.

Hopefully, we had made some kind of impact on them. All we wanted them was to go home and do something worthwhile of the day spent getting so much of information and ideas.

But it seemed like , even after the last bell, the kids were still swarming the stalls. Some of our fast-moving products turned out to be the seeds and when we ran out, we got some extra packets and packed it on the spot and sold it to them. In fact it looked like, as one of our team member pointed out,  “a chef barking out orders and the cook preparing them and bringing it out to the customer”. Our well-oiled team did a fine job, under the intense crowd and satisfying most of them.

The spearheads, during the stalls. and it happened to be a Navin’s first stall experience too, and what an experience that 🙂

So after a pretty long and satisfying day, things came to an end, our seeds box were next to empty and the last of the batch of kids had just emptied the school yard. Heaps of thanks to Mrs.Kalarani and Mr.Vidhyasagar (Correspondent of Vidhya school) for all their support and encouragement.

What would make it more interesting is if each and every one of our readers too would take an oath that the students took, SPACES included, to protect,nurture and preserve the environment and decided to follow through. That would be our biggest achievement and success and nothing else, none of these workshops,demos,presentations or awareness programs. Simple mechanism. Be the change you want to be.