Earthhour

29th March. 8pm. Switch off for 1 hour!


Earthhour is happening. Switch off and indulge in a candle night dinner, take a evening walk, speak to your neighbours or just ramble in the darkness!

Swanthana

A couple of months ago we started working with Swanthana, an organization for street-abandoned children who are differently enabled. We started with going out in small groups of 3-4 to understand their needs. The children needed some physiotherapy equipment; we bought them some. Spend a day blowing up the physiotherapy balls in different sizes. Most of the credit goes to Raj for that! They also needed a children's park. We worked on a meager budget with a lot of contributions coming from our team itself. These are special kids and a normal kid's park is not suitable for them. We worked with a vendor to tweak the swings to suit their needs. The merry-go-round came with sit-in bucket seats to support their backs. The slide with a different plastic material so that they woudn't hurt themselves. Also a jungle gym for which the guys in our team dug 1 metre deep trenches in the torrid Indian sun.

Then, a few days ago we went to see how the kids were doing. We know most of them by name now. The biggest feat for most of us!! (there are 35 kids at Swanthana). Starting right from cudly little babies to 13 year olds who can beat you at a game of basket ball the moment you blink. My team is quite special in that way. They jump at opportunites to sacrifice their weekends, dig out stones weighing kilos with a chisel, paint parks (and their clothes!) and baby-sit kids at Swanthana. And yes, we also love going out of the city on weekends together. Our next trip is to Wayanad, Kerala, which we are trying to convert into an eco trip. Its nothing phenomenal. On the two days that we will be there trekking along the hills of Wayanad we plan to carry those big black garbage disposal bags and collect all the litter thrown away by tourists. I know its not something that is gonna have a lasting effect on the landscape. But the cleaner surrounding might just prevent that next tourist from swishing his cola can on the way.

If anyone has organized or been a part of an eco trip (not read as euro trip :0) ) do give us your suggestions.