World Wetlands Day is not just an opportunity to acknowledge and appreciate the importance of these geographic regions, but also to shine the limelight on issues that fly under the radar. Bringing attention and human resources to the unscrupulous garbage disposal is the Environmentalist Foundation of India that is organising a Mega Volunteering Weekend in various cities across the country.
“With the pandemic subsiding, we are depending on weekend volunteering to sustain our efforts on the ground. This weekend, we are doing activities in Indore, Alwar, Coimbatore, Tirunelveli, and Chennai. In the last three places, we are doing a three-month campaign called Vaanga Let’s Volunteer, where we will be focusing on large water bodies we are restoring, lake clean-ups, and walks, and we want as many community volunteers engaged as possible,” begins Arun Krishnamurthy, the founder of EFI. The same volunteering efforts will continue every Saturday for the rest of the year.
The volunteering efforts will be carried out in Madambakkam, Sithalapakkam, and Agaramthen in Chennai from 7 am to 9 am; Mullikulam, Thamaraikulam, Pettai Periyakulam in Tirunelveli from 3 pm to 5 pm; and at Kaliyaperumal Kuttai and Periya Kuttai in Coimbatore from 4 pm to 6 pm.
With the floods seen in the city, nature has taught people sharp lessons about conservation, he says, adding that the volunteering efforts will help people understand more about restoration and enable them to (in the future) maybe clean a small patch of an area themselves. “Natural-based calamities have brought in innate awareness. There are a lot of WhatsApp warriors but also many who are coming on field and making a difference. People have the appetite to volunteer, they just need a platform or organisation to bring them together and that is what EFI is trying to do,” Arun elaborates.
When it comes to garbage dumping, there is still sensitisation left to achieve in India and what better way than interacting with the area. Sometimes the biggest resource is human resource, maintains Arun and explains that while people understand the urgency of protecting and conserving these water bodies, one also needs to understand the nuances of the place.
“For example, what snake, frog or bird lives where; what is the boundary of a certain lake; how does the water body react and sustain post monsoon; what efforts need to go into it pre-monsoon. We are trying to create awareness through this effort. Otherwise, we will just be doing what we do and people will not know about it,” he says. Many employees at EFI were once volunteers themselves!
There is a need to volunteer and stand up for these efforts whenever possible. And hopefully, we’ll see an impressive smattering of people at the event.
To register for volunteering efforts, visit indiaenvironment.org.