I once read somewhere that never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. And this is what my experience in working with Greenpeace can be summed up as. Passion is the one word that struck me on my first day when I interacted with the team. One sees and hears environmentalists talking about the environment all the time in the media, but here I saw the fieriness being transformed to action.
Being a renewable energy student, I was excited to work with the Solar Solutions team and was given task of making a solar energy handbook. This handbook aims to educate all solar energy enthusiasts who wish to know basics of solar energy in brief and who would also like to make a small do it yourself project at home to understand photovoltaics better. The era of Renewable Energy has just started in our country and each individual would benefit from it whether he/she is directly related to this field or not. And educating the masses is the first step to take to bring about a renewable energy revolution.
While working at the Greenpeace office, I was given the freedom of setting my own timeline and content of the document. Having no prior experience in filtering the information for an audience with perhaps very limited knowledge of renewable energy, I relied heavily on my two mentors (whom I cannot thank enough) Aswini and Anasua, who told me where too much and too little information had been provided. In addition to this I also did some research for solar energy articles to be shared on social media.
My experience can’t just be narrowed down to working on the solar solutions team though. I believe that I learnt a lot just from keen observation of the people surrounding me. Despite the ordeals that the organization has been through in the past year, it’s amazing to see the optimism that everyone has and this positive attitude has helped them to overcome each issue one at a time. Another thing that I observed was how important it is for Greenpeace to mobilize people and a lot of effort is put into training volunteers.
After all the only way forward, if we are going to improve the quality of the environment, is to get everybody involved.
Anukriti is an intern with GP India
check out the solar energy DIY kit here