Environment & village development
Trees that survive their first two summers, and ponds that hold water into June.
What we do
Planting is easy. Keeping the sapling alive is the actual work.
Our memorandum asks us to encourage tree planting, explain its benefits, and arrange proper management of water in village ponds. We take the second half of that seriously: a plantation drive where nobody waters the saplings in May is a photograph, not a programme.
So we plant fewer trees than we could, in places where somebody has agreed to look after them — a school compound, a temple boundary, a panchayat plot, the bank of a johad — and we go back. Where we can, we plant species that a village will defend because it gets something from them: neem, jamun, shisham, peepal.
The village pond is the other piece. A johad that is desilted and kept clean recharges groundwater, gives cattle a place to drink, and stops the monsoon from standing in the lanes. It is unglamorous work, and it is the work that changes a village most.
What support pays for
Fund a hundred trees that are still alive in three years.
We would rather you funded a hundred saplings with guards and two seasons of watering than a thousand saplings and nothing else. Tell us which village you want them in, and we will send photographs at the end of the second summer.
- Sapling & guardA sapling with a tree guard and the first season’s watering
- Plantation drivesAt schools, temples, panchayat land and pond banks
- Pond careCleaning and desilting of village johads, with the panchayat
- Cleanliness drivesAround temples, public spaces and water sources
- AwarenessExplaining to households why the sapling is worth watering