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! 

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.

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.

Introducing ‘The Herbal Garden’ !!!

There was an unusual amount of racket and looking closer, things appeared even more chaotic. It looked like lunch break. But really it was just the school kids looking and pointing, curiosity piqued , poring over the fence trying to glimpse before the others did. We were really stoked that the children were also equally excited!!

So finally, after all the delays in setting up a Herbal Garden at Jaigopal Garodia , IT IS FINALLY FINISHED!!! 🙂  yes, finished. That does sound really good.

Getting the first project off the ground was the major hurdle and now that it is complete, feeling very relieved.

Just to give you a glimpse at how things went, check out our behind-the-scene potshots!

Working on the sign boards!!

work, work , work!!

A lot of boards to go through!!

.Moving on to the field work as the sign boards were done.

and finally, introducing ‘The herbal garden’!!

The before and after effect!! 😛

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Stunning transformation!

Every herb plant with the sign board giving information about the scientific name, local name , the uses with the specific parts along with how to use!

Along the way…

We made sure each plant had been secured with a brick layer around it!

Fencing to make sure the kids don’t damage it on a spree.

Through the fence gap!!

Extremely proud and feeling accomplished after the results we’ve obtained.

So as promised , we will keep pushing through for more herbal gardens for corporation schools and funds for the same. But for now enjoying the completion of the mini garden and reveling in its success. 😀

 

The Mystery Of THANDARAI-The Herbal Village!!

There was a certain festivity in the air. Everyone in the village were all dressed up and running up and about. And the buzz was addictive.

Welcome to Thandarai -The Herb Village unbeknownst to many. Turns out, It was time for their Annual Review Meet and that was what all the ruckus was about.

Situated in Kancheepuram district, just 10 kilometers away from Chengelpet on Mahabalipuram Road, Chennai, It’s a beautiful place filled with a lovely bunch of people giving u a warm welcome, admist all that excitement.

Beautiful Welcome sign

Above mentioned a few notable achievements of THANDARAI

To mention a few highlights about THANDARAI , it is a village specially designed for conservation of medicinal plants . There are various anthropological studies for which they are contacted. Many , many researchers approach them for various disease cure studies on the plants available in their village.

The Irula Tribe are actively involved with the village given their immense knowledge on the subject and actively supported by a dedicated group Irula tribe women’s welfare society (ITWWS) and  Tamilnadu Tourism Development Corporation (TTDC). With Rural and Eco Tourism also in mind , the Local Management Committee (LMC) and Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Tradition (FRLHT) and the Forest department have also pitched in. One more important name to add to this is the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). They have been instrumental in developing more ‘Herbal Villages‘ all across India.

Of course all this is just official information. You have to visit them to get that exhilarated feeling.They are like a full-blown, living,sustainable community, which every society only dreams of. And they have made a remarkable livelihood with the very things that they grow.

After a few initial hiccups , our time had come for the trip. In lieu with the Corporation School project we had undertaken, we had to know more about this mysterious herbal village situated far into the outskirts of Chennai.

The picture below is of their main administrative office. Already we were in love  looking at the structure. Beautiful yet a tasteful treat to the eyes.

THE MAIN ADMIN BUILDING

ANOTHER VIEW OF THE BUILDING

The Herbal Center , which is one of their main undertaking, is such a great testament to their level of detail in planning and execution. They’re pretty well-organized in their work.

HERBAL CENTRE -Note the hibiscus drying out at front! 🙂

They manufacture their own herbal medicines from the plants and the saplings that they grow.

HERBAL MEDICINES STACKED UP

They even have an in-house doctor to oversee the process and to address the villagers medical issues.

The In-House Doctor . And don’t miss out on the “herbal products” section at the back.

They have a proper unit for all their separate procedures like the drying unit, the powdering unit, the packaging unit etc. It was all very impressive.

PACKING UNIT

DRYING UNIT

We encountered them all at THANDARAI , from Aloe vera to insulin plants to cure diabetes and the depth of insight these villagers have is just awe-inspiring.

The Center also has an impressive seed bank at display and needless to say, they have astounding varieties. Even we couldn’t stay out of the enchantment of it all, and eventually bought some hibiscus Tea 🙂

THE SEED BANK

And oh, what a beautiful walk way they had , with every tree having its own name boards. And the path just seemed never-ending. And the nursery was nothing but huge. Rows and rows of saplings in tiny bags were just kept for exhibit.

THE NURSERY

THE PATHWAY

THE NAME BOARDS ALONG THE WAY

And one more interesting aspect to this place for all you massage buffs , is that they have a massage center. It all fits in right?!! They have these special herbal concoctions. It’s specific and customized for every person according to their needs and physical conditions and then they let you soak in them for about an hour and a half and then bathe you with herbal water. Isn’t it just amazing? oh, yeah! they also manufacture special herbal water. 🙂

After the tour of the place , a hearty lunch and chit chatting with the people of the village,  they were even sweet enough to let us sit through their annual meeting for a while. 🙂

So after an eventful day, completely knackered, and looking back we felt enlightened, for lack of a better word. We had found such selfless, hardworking people making this world a better place.

Rural tourism is on a rise and we need more such communities to come together. We keep harping about Chennai and its oh-so-old-traditions and cultures to live with! The day we realize that it’s not about being traditional and old school but about preserving the real values, cultures and trade. And that is when we truly become a city with modern ideals and thinking. And THANDARAI simply embraces them and in fact takes it up a notch.