Raksha Bandhan is a popular Hindu festival in India and like any other festival, Raksha Bandhan too is every excuse to shop and splurge. However, along with the spread of joy and sparkle of the festivities, the festival also brings along a market of rakhis, which are most often than not made out of synthetic material often consisting of micro plastics. Rakhis are often discarded after a few days which end up in our soil and water bodies, thus polluting the environment. To spread awareness about this and to celebrate this festival in an eco-friendly manner, team iVolunteer decided to make our very own rakhis using ingredients from our kitchens.
50 students of Government Co-ed Senior Secondary School were guided by 6 volunteers from iVolunteer on how to make their very own eco-friendly rakhis using easily available kitchen ingredients. A rainbow of colours from dry ingredients like rice, chana dal, masoor daal, urad dal, green gram, rajma were chosen to make the centrepiece of the rakhis.
The twist was that the students learnt to make 100% authentic eco-friendly toys by creating their own natural glue using refined wheat flour (maida) and boiling water
Sana, our in-house talented design student from NIFT drew 3 rakhi blueprints for the children to take inspiration from while Kainat multi-tasked to support them with making beautiful patterned bands. Salman, Akanksha and Tanzeel, from college students to working professionals from diverse backgrounds found joy in going back to school and reliving the moments of friendship, sharing stationary, teamwork, teasing, wonder and a lot more.
The students were encouraged to replicate the learnings from the activity to teach their family members to make more such rakhis. They were also encouraged to tie rakhis to the housekeeping staff as a gesture of gratitude.
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