Sanjeevani Green Initiative promotes organic gardening, planting trees and medicinal plants, vegetable cultivation, and different types of composting. To reconnect people with nature, workshops, nature retreats and group meditation in forests are conducted.
Students visited a local nursing home to clean their premises. They promised that they would be planting saplings also. 2 days worked hard to make this a reality. The first day the boys had gone there and cleaned, dug and prepared the place for planting. The next day the girls also joined and had a wonderful day of planting the saplings and nurturing them. Remembering Amma’s words that plants also have feelings and they respond to us students watered the plants, circumbulated them three times as a mark of respect and also talked with them for a few minutes.
One of the ways to protect the coastal areas from the Tsunami waves is to plant Casuarina saplings. Under the guidance of Swami Jnanamritananda Puri, the chief mentor of Green Friends and AYUDH (Amrita Yuva Dharma Dhara) took initiative and planted a large number of saplings along the Azheekal coastal area. To aid them in their mission, Sanjeevanites organized a volunteering drive on campus and gathered many students and faculty members to work with them. Students had to be told step by step how to go about planting. Overall it was a fun filled 3 hours of seva.
“Losing productive topsoil means losing both organic matter in the soil and vegetation on the land, thus releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Today, roughly a third of the world’s cropland is losing topsoil at an excessive rate, thereby reducing the land’s inherent productivity,”
The Amala Bharatam Campaign (ABC) that focuses not only on cleanliness but also on proper recycling and handling of organic and inorganic waste may have the perfect answer for this global crisis.
The organic waste that is collected from Amala Bharatam Campaigns is being used to create compost in the campus. The food waste, dry leaves and some cow dung is used to make the compost pile.Dry leaves are piled on top of the food waste; cow dung is put at the very top. In about 90 days, rich compost is ready.
Amrita Sanjeevani took an initiative to spread awareness about the importance of organic farming. The 3 day workshop was conducted by Mr. Peter Ash, the Organic Gardening and Composting Educator for the Solana Center for Environmental Innovation, a non-profit organization in San Diego, California with an experience of more than 40 years in this field. We also had Ms. Maria, who is currently in charge of the ecology department at the Ashram. Students from all the streams joined the workshop.
The workshop was aimed at tackling the increasing use of chemical fertilizers, and to spread awareness and knowledge about the advantages of using organic farming methods. And also had a practical session in the organic farm on how to prepare the compost layers.
Earlier students had learned how to use agro-ecological methods to grow food plants. Meeting once a week, they had then started work on a bare spot of ground. Today that bare spot is a lush garden that celebrates bio-diversity and also serves as a laboratory for the development of sustainable food growing systems. As more and more agricultural land is being diverted globally to grow bio-fuels, this is particularly timely. Solutions need to be found as land available for food production decreases, boosting food prices and causing more and more hunger.
Using sack containers since they are the least expensive of all the containers to grow vegetables like tomatoes, long beans, brinjal (egg plant) and ladies finger in the balcony. A mixture of soil sand and manure is added into the sack and then planed seeds and also kept under a shading net to protect it from sun.
On September 18th, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham celebrated ‘Vriksha Raksha Bandhan’ where the students all went and tied Rakhis to our own plants. This was a great experience for all the volunteers which made them feel that making friends with nature brings about joy and harmony in one’s life.
Vegetables were cultivated through various techniques like Key hole gardening, Hydro phonics
