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.