27 October 2014
The Earth as painted by kids from the summer camp at Pune.
At Greenpeace, every day we talk, interact, inspire and mobilise people to be the change and to bring a change in the environment by their good deeds. Last year, I met one such individual in Pune who is a donor of Greenpeace and runs an organization “Sajeevi” with his wife in Pune.
Last year in March, our then middle donor officer, Pradip, gave us the lead of a supporter and asked us to connect to him. He wanted GP’s help in creating an awareness drive among the school children in one of their soon-to-be organized summer camp.
He is Mr. Deviprasad Palit, a 60-plus gentleman. Sajeevi is Mr. and Mrs. Palit’s brainchild. Every year in the month of May they run a summer camp for school children aged 7 to 12. This time they invited Greenpeace to be on board.
Designing something creative for children was not at all an easy task. We called (my colleague Amit was also there) Mrs. Palit to know the structure of their camp and what they required from our side. It was a very homely invitation and we shared many of our stories while eating lunch together. Back in our mind, we were still thinking about what to do for those children and suddenly the idea of creating a globe peeped up. Let those kiddos come up with different thoughts and fill the globe with images, colours, anything. Let that globe be theirs, only theirs.
Mrs. Palit also loved this completely new idea and then the next level of conversation followed. In case this new innovation failed to succeed we also shared with her alternative ideas which we were confident would never fail. The day of the event was fixed, May 4, 2013.
One day we received a call and got to know that our idea of creating a globe already turned into a reality and we were all excited to face that world of surprises. We were joined by our colleagues Neha and Swati.
The globe was just awesome. The kids were just great...they were from a mix of Marathi, Hindi and English medium schools and were well informed of climate change and forests, but not that much on the renewable energy aspect. So we took them through our videos to make them realize the need of wind, sun and all the natural resources in our eco-circle. At the end of the screening they took a pledge to save the forests at any cost and promised not to let other people destroy them.
Then the chief attraction of the day was waiting for us: IT’S YOUR EARTH-PAINT IT. The theme was ready and the globe divided into four parts - RAHU, KETU, SHANI AND MANGAL. This was just not for the sake of the division but to accommodate each and every child in that activity so that they can feel the ownership of it and share it.
The children were instructed not to use any printed images, only real and natural images. They used their imagination and within 15 minutes, the globe took shape of the earth where one can find all the ingredients of nature. The best part of the activity was the teamwork. Not only children, but everyone present over there participated.
The session ended with a typical Maharashtrian lunch. We learnt a lot, team-building, team-bonding, the spirit, the zeal, ownership and the purity of creation, and the raw love for the work the kids did.
A real salute to the creator and the creation!!!!!
Sohini Mahapatra is an Outreach Officer with Greenpeace India