Here's a glimpse into our cleanup drive at Bhalswa lake... Kudos to these students from Ramjas College who are running this initiative called Project Neer with Enactus.

VOLUNTEER... IT HELPS! Whatever your cause, whatever your motivation, I hope you'll agree with me that volunteer service is an extraordinary gift. - Neil Bush A pleasant February morning welcomed us at Sangam Vihar DDA park. Perfect for a cleanup drive! Our small yet significant army wore their reusable gloves and exuded their passion towards cleaning the environment around our saplings clean. Of course, it also helps in keeping the place neat and tidy anyway! The beauty of this team is they do not need directions. Everything falls into place by itself. Some went forward clearing up the garbage and others began clearing up weeds surrounding our saplings. And some fed the saplings with compost. The coordination was like a perfect symphony orchestra. At the end of the drive, we collected about 60 kg of trash and were able to clear enough weed that our saplings were clearly noticeable, with a dedicated path now visible towards them for easy a...

PED TO LAGAYA... #PaaniDiyaKya ? Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. – Arthur Ashe The problem of air pollution is on the rise every year and the air we inhale is only going to get more toxic if we don't change our ways. We have become prey to our comfortable lifestyles that we find it difficult to escape. What we don't know is the power of taking small steps starting from home to volunteering on community level. Our volunteers are conscious about the consequences of every action of theirs - segregating waste at home to planting and nurturing native trees regularly! This weekend, our volunteers gathered at the three locations we have planted native trees - namely, Hauz Khas, Sainik Vihar and Sangam Vihar. With the onset of relatively sunny days, many of these littlebies were waiting for us eagerly to quench their thirst. With the expected sunny days ahead, our plants will need us more often.  Help us in watering the...

PED TO LAGAYA... #PaaniDiyaKya ? Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. -William James The bad news is that air pollution still persists and the good news is that it can be dealt with by taking tiny steps by each one of us. All we just need is to accept the situation and start acting on it instead of passing the ball in other's court. Our volunteers very well understand the severity of problem we all have landed ourselves into and are doing their bit to dilute the polluted air that we're breathing at present. We gathered at Sangam Vihar to water and nurture our saplings that we planted here. The volunteers also did weeding around our these saplings. It's their weekly efforts that the saplings are doing fine. But, we need more people! Join us and help these saplings grow. Visit http://wmtc.org.in

Our volunteer Gaurav Garg representing us at a four-day workshop by the U.S. Forest Service . USFS has setup a network of NGOs and volunteer groups across Delhi NCR. We are one of the fortunate ones to be included in the program. The program endeavours to facilitate sharing of best practices pertaining to native tree plantation and waste management. A great opportunity for us to learn from the likes of Peepal Baba of Give Me Trees Trust, who is anyway a mentor to us. Other entities include I Am Gurgaon, Sow Good Farms, Mission 100 Crore Trees, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and Swechha.

HAPPY REPUBLIC DAY! Let's fulfill our constitutional duty towards our environment. It shall be the duty of every citizen of India to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife, and to have compassion for living creatures. - Article 48A and Article 51A(g) of Indian Constitution Our constitution tells us, the citizens of India to protect and improve the environment. How many of us are doing that? Our volunteers, for sure, are. Our watering teams gathered at Sainik Vihar and Sangam Vihar this weekend. It was good to be back with our saplings after two weeks of watering break, all thanks to the rain gods for showering their blessings on the little ones. The volunteers watered the plants and also removed weed surrounding the saplings. Our Sangam Vihar team also cleared some plastic waste from the vicinity of the plants and helped them get a cleaner environment to flourish. This Republic Day, let’s take a deep...

In our continuing attempts at Sarita Vihar towards waste management, we have now complete feedback model from both both sides - waste collectors as well as residents. Thanks to our last weekend's workshop with the waste collectors' contractor of the area on the role of effective waste collection for proper waste management system. We're super excited to share that starting next month, only segregated waste shall be collected from the residents, which would be further directed to a nearby biogas plant setup recently. It'd thus reduce the burden on our landfills. Want to start waste segregation at your society? Don't worry! We're there to help. Visit http://wmtc.org.in

LET'S PREP UP FOR FUTURE No. of volunteers: 3 Households covered: 57 The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it. – Robert Swan What do you see when you gaze out your window of future? A healthy and wealthy you enjoying the beautiful world with your family. Now roll-back in the present and look around you. Littered roads, heaps of garbage, polluted air! That's what we're surrounded with at present. The sooner that we start acting on it without waiting for others, the sooner we will make our world, our home a brighter place.  The residents of Sarita Vihar have started acting on it by segregating their household waste. Thanks to our volunteers that we have covered most of the households in our weekly awareness campaigns. It was good to see three dustbins in many homes when our volunteers went for awareness this weekend. We hope that this chain reaction of positive change keeps accelerating. Want to start waste...

PED TO LAGAYA... #PaaniDiyaKya ? The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit. – Nelson Henderson No. of volunteers = 10 Saplings watered = 187 Save trees, save life is not merely a slogan, it is a responsibility which should be followed by each and every person living on the Earth. Trees are a symbol of life on our planet and a natural abode to the marvellous wild animals. In a rapidly advancing world, where homo sapiens are grappling for themselves, trees are living for the benefit of all! It is high time that we stopped taking these precious gifts, that nature has bestowed us with, for granted.  The simplest way our volunteers have adopted to protect trees is to nurture the right from their nascent stage. Hence, following the weekly ritual of watering the native tree saplings that we planted, our watering teams were at Sangam Vihar, Sainik Vihar and Sarvapriya Vihar with their water cans. From carrying filled c...

CHANGE BEGINS WITH YOU Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. – Leo Tolstoy Everyone has an opinion on what is wrong with the world, yet few will do the work to improve their own lives. It's very easy to pass the baggage but it's very difficult to accept our own flaws. Minimizing our individual flaws... that's what the residents at Sarita Vihar are working on. It's been two months since we initiated waste management awareness in Sarita Vihar. And even after that we have been conducting door to door awareness on waste segregation. More than 300 houses have been covered so far and the response from residents is quite positive! Some already segregate and some are even composting their kitchen waste. Not just the residents, waste pickers are also collecting dry waste and wet waste separately. With the inauguration of biogas plant in vicinity, we aim to maximize the supply of segregated organic waste to the facil...

PED TO LAGAYA… #PaaniDiyaKya ? Finding green beneath browns is what we call treasure. Ever wondered why we feel calm in the lap of nature? Or why do we even keep artificial plants at homes? That’s because of the green colour which is the Nature’s colour. Green is restful, soothing, cheerful, and health-giving. It represents growth, nature, money and safety. The color green is a relaxing color that is pleasing to the eye and is said to have healing powers.  There’s one more aspect of the green which is very crucial for our volunteers - and we call it LIFE. That’s what our volunteers were looking for in our saplings at Sangam Vihar last weekend. We were disheartened to discover that most of the planted saplings have turned leafless. But thanks to the scratch test, the lively shade of green appeared within browns that amped us up and we knew that the saplings might have turned leafless, but not lifeless. A simple soil depression check by pressing it with our feet l...

AND IT CONTINUES... Remember our ongoing waste segregation awareness campaign at Sarita Vihar? Our volunteers continued the efforts last weekend as well. This time we covered 150+ houses and that too, within just three hours. It was exciting to receive immense positive response from residents. Some of them are even segregating their waste effectively! Along with a few more residents, we also sensitized the waste pickers to bring two collection bags - one for dry waste and one for wet waste. The locals have started taking actions. But we can’t do it alone. Need your support as well. Join us in our efforts and help us providing solution to Delhi’s garbage crisis. Visit http://wmtc.org.in

SURPRISE SURPRISE! There is no ‘Right Work, Wrong Time'.  Yes, our Sainik Vihar watering team made a surprise visit to our saplings there with a gift that was much needed - WATER. They watered 100+ amaltas and mehendi saplings over there and so as it seems, our Sainik Vihar watering drive for this weekend is done a day in advance… all thanks to these people. #PaaniDiyaKya ?

CHANGE IS A PROCESS, NOT AN EVENT No. of volunteers = 7 Households covered = 36 The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance. - Nathaniel Branden Lasting lifestyle and behavior changes don’t happen overnight. But then, there’s always a beginning and it all starts with awareness of what needs to be improved. Then, the desire and commitment to make necessary changes follow. Building new behaviors and habits take time and practice, but it's not all. Most people fail changing because they connect to the issue, but are not 100% aware of what they need to change. Thus, our volunteers went door-to-door sensitizing the residents of Sarita Vihar about an issue each one of us connects to, but fails to act on - THE WASTE MENACE. Though many people had their reasons for not being able to do something about it, it was good to interact with others who, instead of treating it as mundane, were actually segregating their waste. Not j...

PED TO LAGAYA… #PaaniDiyaKya? No. of Volunteers = 10 Saplings Watered = 124    Find out what your gift is and nurture it. - Katty Perry Be it birthday, festival, wedding, job promotion or any normal day, we all like gifts. Don’t we? Right from receiving,  unwrapping and to discovering what’s inside - we are so amped and it doesn’t end there - we lovingly keep the gifts with utmost excitement and care. But, where does our excitement disappear for the most precious gift we got from mother nature??  GIFT OF LIFE! Everything we need to survive, and thrive, is provided by the nature around us: food, water, air. Yet, Many of us have conveniently disconnected ourselves from the natural world. Whilst, we humans may have forgotten but mother nature continues to be giving as ever, even in times when it is unfortunately vanishing bit-by-bit.  Let's not forget, trees are a beautiful part of the natural environment and such amazingly eff...