Making the world a Cooler Place!

As #WorldEarthDAY draws closer, we decided to highlight the work done by Say Trees who also one of our #iVolunteerAwards finalists.

 
Say Trees aims to sensitize and empower people to give back to nature and live in an environment which conducive to their health and well-being.

SayTrees inspires citizens to spare some time out of their busy schedule to work towards making their city and life greener. Their long term plans entail taking tree plantation drives to more number of cities.

When asked what they feel about volunteers here’s what they had to say,

Volunteers are special to us because they can turn-around almost anything. They are the ones who are the backbone of our mission; they take us a step closer to our mission with their passionate support.

Some of their major achievements include organizing a tree plantation drive in Kasavanahalli Lake, Bangalore, where they alongside volunteers, planted around 600 saplings.

This step was taken to make sure the lake gets a natural boundary and the birds get a home. These 600 saplings were planted in 2 stages. 450 saplings were planted on WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY [June 5th 2014] and 150 saplings were planted on June 13th 2014.

“The volunteers are the backbone of all our drives. Right from the planning to the execution of any event volunteers play the most vital role. The volunteers helped us scouting the plantation location, preparing pits for trees, sourcing them and also ensuring proper tree plantation.”

Say trees also help to educate people about tree plantations  “We provide training to our volunteers prior to any program; we train them by showing them how do the task.”

For example, during a tree plantation drive, all the volunteers are briefed about a location, the nature of the soil, the kind of sapling that will be planted and their impact in maintaining the ecological balance and local biodiversity.

SayTrees had created a mini-forest of 4,00,000 Sq. feet here in the heart of the city with help of hundreds of nature loving enthusiastic volunteers. This mini-forest will not only act as a major oxygen bank & carbon sink for the ever growing city of Bangalore but will also help in sustaining the rich biodiversity around the lake and also help in increasing the depleting ground water table.

Plantation with help of villagers was aimed to create economic model in following way

• The fruit trees will bear fruits, which villagers can sell in market to for steady income.
• Trees usually take 2-3 years to grow. Villagers are involved in maintenance of the saplings and thus motivated to grow the trees.
• Participation on people from cities infuses pride in villagers towards the work they do.
• People also got to see the village life and understand the issues faced at the grass root level. Such engagement lead to brainstorming over issues and also various solutions were introduced and put into practise.

They also explain the characteristics of each plant and its benefits.The volunteers are then guided from planting a sapling all the way to digging a pit, alongside all the precautions to be taken.

So if you’re ever in Bangalore and you want to volunteer for a cause, join the green team and Volunteer with Say Trees.