Paryavaran mitra - “lets become a PLANT BUDDY”
“Environment is the only thing in the whole universe which doesn’t need us but we need it.”
Related to this is a national level initiative called “Paryavaran mitra” that focuses on bringing us close to nature. I was the youngest participant in this competition. After a workshop at Ahmedabad, I am came to my school and started my project.
I gave my project the title, “PAUDHANDEHI” which means “seeking plants”. Nowadays children are glued to ipads and laptops and their virtual interaction with the nature is practically missing. Secondly the underprivileged children are not aware regarding the usage of plants (herbal plants). The objective of this project is to develop respect & affection for herbal plants amongst young children and underprivileged groups and to develop the habit gifting plants.
We chose 5 herbal plants namely tulsi, mint, ardusi, lemon grass and aloe vera each with its own benefits. I had a team of a junior student council consisting of prefects. My mentor in this project was my teacher, Ms Preetha Nair. We had to grow a plant bank.
Initially we called the kabadiwala and sold all the newspapers and collected funds. Then we involved all the clubs of our school. We told the echo club to go to the nursery and bring those 5 herbal plants. After bringing them, we placed them in our plant bank which is in our garden. After that we staged a skit through the dramatics club to sensitize the students regarding the plant bank.
And then we started the campaign, “Buy one, Gift one”. The students bought the plants from which one they kept and the other one they gave it to another person. They had to maintain a journal regarding the record of growth of the plant. To attract more people we made badges and gave one badge to each child who collected the plants. We called each person a plant buddy. The creative writing club made slogans. Everybody slowly came close to nature.
Then we went out to the community with the innovative science and community service club. We found a place called Sanjay Nagar, the residence place of navprerna, a group in our school consisting of poor children. We made plant hangers through ropes and went there with another club to give them for free. They also grew the plants and nourished them.
We then went to Arpan, a school for children with disabilities and taught them how to grow, nourish and care for the plants sensitively. We paired with United Way Of Baroda, Lions club of Baroda, The nature park, CII (Confederation of Indian Industry), etc. and gave talks there.
We have done this by converting our project into a model. And after submitting the final document to CEE, we have finally won in Gujarat and have been nominated at national level. All the newspapers have also given coverage of this news. I am proud to say that today we truly are a “PARYAVARAN MITRA”.
