Vivekananda Kendra-nardep has worked out a detailed holistic blue print for making Rameshwaram a green pilgrimage. This involves discovering the historical, cultural and ecological linkages and reviving them. Apart from linkages we also have to revive the relations at the institutional, social and individual levels. A road map to this has been charted out. Beginning this newsletter we are sharing this with you. You can read it in detail and understand the holistic transformation VK-nardep aims to achieve in Rameshwaram by making it a green pilgrimage model island. Meanwhile the project of reviving the Teerthams or the sacred water bodies in the island has achieved another milestone with the Bhima Teertham in a very ruined state now getting a face-lift. Have a look at what the hard work and toil of our workers have obtained for this sacred water body on the way to the Kandhamana-parvata hillock a place sacred next only to the temple in the island.
In our happening section we have training programme on construction technology, workshops on sustainable agriculture including Azolla training programmes, exposure visits by various sections of the society including farmers, students, SHG members etc. workshop on indigenous Siddha medical practices, a series of training programmes and awareness camps for bio-methanation plants etc. Farmers from Maharashtra, students from Thirunelveli and rural community from Dingugal district of Tamil Nadu - all benefited from our Gramodaya Park exhibition of various green technologies. In our publication section we share a few eco-toons that will ignite thoughts about science, technology and sustainable development.
In our wisdom section we have a Japanese ecologist talk about the harmonizing of the cycle of Tao. She says: Since yin and yang complement each other to constitute the whole, so it is necessary to consider how to make the most of both.We have Swami Chinmayananda speaking about the ecological crisis that humanity is facing. He rightly traces the root of the problem to what we do to the nature being returned to us. So he calls it as 'ec(h)ology'. What ecological problems need is not a mere technological solution but a change of attitude: You are destroying nature's harmony and saying that nature is misbehaving. All the time we are talking of how to adjust the outer world. We never turn our attention to the source of the problem - YOU. Psychologist David Barash explores the interconnected nature: The interconnected and interdependent nature of things is the heart of ecology. So our existence is not a distinct and separable phenomenon.
