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| Our Eco-Culture | ||
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Message to Our Evergreen Member | Customer Response | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Dear Orchid Evergreen Member, All of us are like sunflowers - powerful and radiant - a symbol of life. As its seeds fall, they create "new life". Similarly, you our Orchid Evergreen Member can be the "lifeline" for the environment - creating a climate that's healthy and conducive for the children of tomorrow. There are some exciting ways in which you and The Orchid can work together from a common platform, providing the much needed inspiration to help our young grow, develop and turn ideas into action. "When someone kills many people, he is guilty of genocide. Someone who kills a lot of trees is guilty of ecocide" says Rodolfo Montiel Flores the Environmentalist. Therefore, the time has come to act now to stop the relentless abuse of our irreplaceable wilderness lands, to save endangered species and to protect our global environment before our chance to do so disappears for good. As a member of the Orchid Evergreen Club, you have a chance to be part of an effective grassroot team that works actively to protect the environment. Attached is a copy of the various projects that we at The Orchid have tied up with and you may choose any, if you want to join our crusade to save the environment. Wondering how to go about it??? It's fairly simple - just use the Recycle Option in The Evergreen Program and become a conscious citizen by contributing (donating) to ecofriendly causes. We are confident you will find our suggestion useful and you can be a part of this enterprising and innovative team, if you want to make this world a better place to live in. Kindly recycle your points - remember it's for a worthy and noble cause. If you have the inclination, we have the time to update you on our various projects. Regards, Sincerely, Shyam Iyer Orchid Evergreen - Cell Bombay Natural History Society Conservation Education Centre "Building bridges for Conservation" The Orchid has forged a tie up with Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) so as to enable you, our esteemed members to make a difference. Following is a brief about BNHS and its activities. Environment education is a tool, which can be effectively used for short term and long term behavioral change through making people aware and by changing their attitudes towards environment. A well-planned environment education is effective, for a person to change lifestyle and become environment friendly or for a school to adopt environment as an important subject or for a family to adopt eco-friendly technologies available around. The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) proposes to initiate such educational programmes with the help of Orchid Evergreen through its Conservation Education Centre The details of activities are as follows. Production of Newsletter 2.1 Activity: There are about 2500 within Mumbai and hundreds of NGOs working in different fields right from health to education. The newsletter will be produced,giving information on latest environmental issues, case studies of successes and failures and also technical information on a science topic within the curriculum. This will be distributed to all the schools in Mumbai along with nature clubs and NGOs. The newsletter will be two colour, printed on four sides of A4 size paper and will be distributed to all the above groups by post. To make this newsletter more participatory, it is planned to announce competitions and contests in the newsletter as well as invite articles and comments and case studies from the readers. So as to cater to different small organisations and municipal schools, the newsletter will be freely distributed with a follow-up activity from the centre to make sure that it is being used effectively. This will also be the first step towards developing environmental corner in every school in Mumbai. The activities like painting competition essay competition and small projects will also form part of the newsletter. 2.2 Impact: Many schools have shared with BNHS the need for more information and educational material so as to include environment education as a major component in school programmes. This newsletter will be useful to the teachers because of the scientific information and case studies included in it. This will also be effective communication channel for all the educational institutions in the city and for other organisations working in different fields. The newsletter will provide a common platform to different agencies and individuals in Mumbai to share their concerns and opinions about environment. 2.3 Budget: Four page of A4 size printed in single colour and with number of illustrations will be produced on quarterly basis. The contributions to the newsletter will be invited from different experts to the field. On some occasions this may cost some honorarium to be paid to the contributors. The total budget outlay for the activity is as follows:
3.0 Environmental Awareness Programmes For Schools In Mumbai The students are one of the main target groups of CEC activities. From the 2500 schools in Mumbai, teachers and students will be visiting the centre in prorganised visits. The CEC would interact with about 10,000 students every year with following objectives : To foster clear awareness of and concern about economic, social, political and ecological inter-dependence in urban and rural areas. To provide every student with opportunities to acquire the knowledge, values, attitude, commitment and skills needed to protect and improve environment. To create new patterns of behavior of individuals and groups and society as a whole towards the environment 3.1 Activities a. The CEC is surrounded by deciduous forest, which will be used for conducting nature trails. Five nature trails have been designed and will have interpretation stations installed on the trails. The nature trail offers an opportunity to closely observe nature. As a part of the CEC visit, students will visit one of the trails. b.The centre consist of three public areas, namely a Discovery room, Display room and Auditorium. The displays are theme based, interactive and related to school Curriculum. The activities planned in display and discovery room will help students gather information about the environment independently. A set of changeable displays on various themes will also be developed. c.The centre has good collection of educational films and slide sets on biodiversity, urban and rural environmental issues. The screening of these films and slide talk will help student understand the way in which environmental issues are interrelated so that one factor affects others. The centre will also develop issue specific audio- visuals in regional languages. d.The centre will also organise visits of special groups such as, tribal students, spastic students and other under privileged group of students. There will be 20 visits of such groups.3.2 Budget Programme fee for visit to CEC is Rs. 50/- per student. The visit fee could be subsidised with the support from "You" Evergreen members. 10,000 students in a year x Rs. 15/- per student : Rs. 1,50,000 4.0 Capacity Building Programmes For Teachers The role of teachers in creating awareness and positive attitude towards environment is crucial. The trained and motivated teachers can effectively develop positive attitude and skills in pupils for the environment. However, there have been no serious efforts to train and motivate the teachers. The roposed project will interact with teachers through series of workshops and develop their capacities in Environment Education (EE) These workshops will be conducted in Mumbai and different parts of India. There will be 6 workshops of about 25 participants each every year. 4.1 Objective To develop capacities of teachers in EE and motivate them to develop environmental awareness, positive attitude and skills among the pupils. 4.2 Activities a. A series of residential workshops (3 days duration) will be organised for teachers The content of the workshop will be as follows. The need for environmental education (EE) Effective tools and techniques in EE How to integrate EE in the school curriculum Urban and rural environmental issues Nature education projects Development of low-cost educational resources b. The evaluation of the outcome of the workshop will be conducted with the help of written feedback. c. A continuous interaction with teachers will be initiated and sustained after the workshop so as to provide them technical assistance. This will ensure the continuity of the EE activities in the schools. 4.3 Budget: The cost of one workshop would be Rs. 30,000, which includes lodging, boarding, travel support and training material for 25 participants. The annual budget would be Rs. 1,80,000/- for 6 workshops. 5. 'DHANESH'- A wall Magazine in Marathi 5.1 Activity In the field of environment education there is dearth of material at the school level and this unavailability becomes the major hurdle in imparting environment education to the students. Wall magazine is a low cost and yet very effective education material, which could be displayed at places where large number of people can see, read and discuss on the subjects. Mumbai schools are the best places for the educational wall magazine to be put up as hundred of thousands of children, teachers, and parents will be able to see the wall magazine. Dhanesh is a Marathi name for hornbill, which is a highly endangered bird. The wall magazine will contain information on biodiversity, ecosystems, green projects, success stories, and many interesting facts about nature with colour picture. This wall magazine will be a 4 colour, printed on 100 gsm art paper (paper size 24'' x 35 '') This will be circulated in about 1000 Marathi Medium schools in Mumbai. 5.2 Budget: Cost of 1000 wall magazines inclusive of : Rs. 30,000/- per 1000 copies. Designing, editing, printing, distribution And feedback For all queries regarding your Orchid Evergreen Points and their redemption for rewards or recycling them into the "Green Account" please feel free to contact Mr.Shyam Iyer Or Click here to E-mail | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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