#102

..Humbly dedicated to our mother earth.

Though green is the prime colour, being green has become something unachievable because of the self-centric manifestations by the 21st century breeds of homo sapiens. We cut trees to house the growing population, however we never plant them. We compete to burn crackers and effigies, however forgot about our own asthmatic parents and siblings. The social being in us, preach about proper drainage systems and sanitation however in our busy schedules we become the first to throw the garbage on the streets. Our mother advises us to take the jute-bag to buy vegetables and groceries, however we never practice it and still pay for the plastic bag. As we understand, honking creates noise pollution however during our day2day rushy journeys, we forgot about the noise population. Thus, it starts and ends at us.

“Green is the prime colour of the world , and that from which it’s loveliness arises” : Pedro Calderon de la Barca.

We require the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, first to be conducted in our mindsets.

Having all that said, Helping Brainz’s Green VEINS (Valuable and Eco-friendly Initiatives for Nature’s Sustainability) team conducted a Green Information Literacy Drive (GILD) to educate and to make aware the young leaders of Aster Public School, Noida Extension about the importance of being green with the help of Green-Talks, Green-Quizzes, Green-Parliaments, Green-Workshops and Green-Plantations. Though this was completely an experiment, we were overwhelmed to see the wholehearted participation from the students from Aster.

In this wonderful green event we had Mrs. Kiran Pandey (Programme Director, Library and Information Management – Centre for Science and Environment) as our Chief Guest, and Mrs. Bindoo Gupta (Teacher, and Senior Educationist at Cambridge School, Delhi) as our Guest of Honour. The programmes were inauguared by Dr.Sharbari Banerjee (Principal, Aster Public School, Noida) and the school’s management officials. The entire event was orchestrated by Kirti Tikyani (Project Head, Helping Brainz Green VEINS).

Around 70 students from class 9th and class 11th participation in the green event. Students were divided into 4 groups, namely ‘Chipko Movement’, ‘Silent Valley’, ‘Jungle Bachao’ and ‘Bishnoi Movement’ wherein Jungle Bachao Andolan and Silent Valley won the Green-Quiz and Green-Parliaments respectively. Sree Lakshmi (our project manager for Information Literacy Drives) and a student from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University spoke about the importance of ‘greenery’ and Mrs. Monika Ghosh (Social Media Manager for the Online Go Green Movement), conducted a green-workshop on “Plastic Bottle Planters”. Event was followed by tree plantations by the students.

We’ve selected a team of 20 Helping Brainz Young Green Volunteers who will be visiting a rural school from Sec137 Noida, to conduct a GILD with a mission to educate the rural children about the importance of being green.

Helping Brainz Leaders who contributed a Saturday for the green happening were Kirti Kumari Tikyani, Monica Ghosh, Surbhi Dhingra, Avin Lakhenpal, Arun John, Neha Babu, Vineeth M Sadanandan, Sree Lakshmi and Yedhu Krishna Menon.

To know more about Helping Brainz Green Movement, please write to Kirti@helpingbrainz.org