By Casey Monteiro
It takes just a flame to set a forest on fire, and it can also take just one seed to create a forest.
The Vivekanand Eco Club of the Vivekanand Dnyan Mandir High School, Keri-Sattari, recently organised a seed ball making workshop, 'Creating Forest'.
As they went about making seed balls with a vengeance, this workshop, which is an annual feature in the school itinerary, had an added purpose this time – to afforest areas that had been charred by the recent forest fires in their taluka, Sattari.
This time, the workshop was held as part of the G20 activities. Goa is one of the host venues for the upcoming G20 Summit, an international economic forum, which India is a part of.
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP
The workshop was open to students and even parents of the students. “We even accept students from other schools to come and join us if they are interested,” said In-charge Head Master of the school, Gopinath Gawas.
Interested students had been asked to bring seeds along with them, with emphasis on fruit bearing ones. The seed balls, collected from the workshop, will be scattered by students around their houses on World Environment Day ie June 5, 2023.
“We also take students to areas around the village to scatter these seed balls. This time, we taught the students to make seed balls, and asked them to replicate the same and make another 50 to 100 balls at their homes, which they can then bring to school,” explained Gopinath.
The resource persons for the workshop were Ramdas Shetkar, Chandrashekhar Gawas and Sandesh Kesarkar, teachers from the host school.
Inculcating a love for the environment, biodiversity that includes our forests, in the young minds is one of the aims of the eco club of the school.
During the recent forest fires which affected the forests in the vicinity of the school, Gopinath along with teachers of the school, joined volunteers to put out the flames.