TEAM Celebrated Its Second Anniversary on the World Environment Day
TEAM Celebrated Its Second Anniversary on the World Environment Day
Tesi Environmental Awareness Movement (TEAM), turned two on the World Environment Day 2007. To mark the twin event, TEAM organized a daylong environmental awareness activities at Bir, Himachal Pradesh, including morning function; exhibitions on endangered species and shopping alternatives; free distribution of TEAM’s publications; Bir clean-up drive; door-to-door waste reduction appeal; essay and drawing competition; and showing of the Inconvenient Truth.
The events-- attended by Tibetans from Gergye, Nangchen and Chauntra Settlements and supported whole-heartedly by the local Deer Park Institute-- started with a morning function which included prayers, tree planting, and a series of lectures.
Along with prayers to awaken compassion from all sentient beings, the eight monks from Nyingpa and Sakya monasteries led a special prayer to call deities and spirits to re-consecrate the Mother Earth which has undergone so much pollution since the beginning of Industrial Revolution. As a gesture of appreciation and to renew our human connection with plants with a sense of gratitude, trees were planted where the guests offered water, soil and prayers for their healthy growth.
The two settlement officers of Nangchen, and Bir Tibetan Society, Mr. Tsering Wangdu and Mr. Konchok Norbu respectively, spoke clearly on the importance of environmental conservation and the need for environmental awakening from their people. One of the biggest problems faced by the community is the waste disposal. The settlements since its inception in the early 1960s to date have not found a proper dumping area for their trash. For the last forty plus years local streams have mainly served as drains for their food wastes to used batteries to styrofoam platters. Since the last several months, TEAM has been working with the Settlement Officers and local organizations to find a sustainable solution to the waste problem in Bir. TEAM’s main initiative in Bir has been education and awareness on waste management including alternative shopping, waste segregation, composting, and zero-waste living.
One of our main speakers, Mrs. Tenzin Palmo, passionately spoke about how ‘thoughtful shopping’ could solve so many of our trash problems. Sharing her lifelong pledge as never to buy tetra-packed milk, she requested everyone else to adopt an eco-friendly behavior starting that day. Her special appeal to parents was to feed kids with healthy snacks like nuts and fruit and not on Lays Chips and fuzzy drinks which could do more harm than help their children.
TEAM’s founder/director, Tsering Yangkey, shared how the organization got started with a mission to revive the ecological consciousness of the Tibetan people. She thanked the Dalai Lama Trust for supporting the organization for the first year and Care for the Wild International for supporting it the second year. Their support and project supports from the Rowell Fund, Dharma Gaia Trust, Rainforest Information Centre, Vera Hsu and Marc Rosenbaum have made TEAM’s work possible. TEAM has so far given more than twenty workshops in schools and settlements on biodiversity conservation and waste management and published fourteen brochures and six books. TEAM plans to do more in coming years specially in raising environmental consciousness in the monastic communities.
The morning function--concluded with tea, snacks and songs--was followed by workshops on waste segregation, compost making and Kapad se Jugad (making useful articles from trash). Workshops were well attended by Bir communities since the community is keen on finding a solution to their wastes. During the workshops we stressed on the importance of waste minimization from the start by buying less and buying less non-biodegradable products. Reducing, reusing, recycling, composting and recreating treasures from waste were our main themes for the workshops and they appealed almost all of our participants.
After a quick lunch break, four events took simultaneously: essay competition for adults, a drawing contest for kids, door-to-door waste reduction appeals and Bir Clean-up Drive. We were pleasantly surprised to see so many faces ready to volunteer for the cleanup. Gloves, masks and sacs were distributed for volunteers who rallied around Bir cleaning as well as making door-to-door appeals on waste reduction. After the cleanup, trashes were dumped near the main road in front of shops and restaurants in the middle of the taxi stand and again a demonstration was made on waste segregation, waste reduction and creating treasures from trash. The volunteers--including the members and workshop attendees of the Deer Park Institute; the local Tibetan Women’s Association, Bir Regional Tibetan Youth Congress, Bir community members and TEAM members-- were served cool rose-water and Tibetan tea by the Deer Park Institution at their dining hall.
The participants for the essay competition on Chu/Water were mainly students from the Suja Tibetan Children’s Village School. The best four essays, all written by Suja students, and the four best drawings were awarded with cash gifts made possible by the Lungta, an organization based in Switzerland.
At 6 pm, Al Gore’s film Inconvenient Truth was shown to a mixed audience of both Tibetans and Indian.
In all, it was definitely a fulfilling day where we not only celebrated the twin event with tea, juice and snacks but worked hard to nourish them as well.
For further information please contact Ugyen and Yungdung Nyima at ecotibet@ecotibet.org
