Udaipur's First Green Festival for Educators
INTRODUCING UDAIPUR'S FIRST
GREEN FESTIVAL FOR EDUCATORS
May 11th, 2009
10.30 am -- 6.30 pm
Mohan Singh Mehta Memorial Trust, Divali, Udaipur
Table of Contents
Festival Schedule
Organizers
Invitation Letter
Development Background
GREEN FESTIVAL FOR EDUCATORS
EVENT SCHEDULE
10:00 – 10:30 Coffee House
10:30 – 1:00 pm Mela interactions (about 15-20 stalls)
zero waste was one of our greatest traditional virtues and it is now a cutting edge value for the 21st Century.
1:10 – 1:50 pm Welcome and Larger Context Setting
Big Medicine & Shikshanter (10 minutes each)
Kishore Saint -- Poetry of Sustainable Living (10 minutes)
Music and film clip (10 minutes)
1:50 – 2:30 LUNCH
2:30 – 3:30 pm Small Group Discussions – 2 rounds, 30 min each
* what was personally inspiring for you from the morning session?
* what kinds of green initiatives have you already begun in your personal lives, schools, communities?
* what keeps you up at night in relation to our environment and the direction of society?
3:30 – 5:00 pm Searching for Common Ground and Collaborative Solutions
Quiet reflective period with Personal Questionaire regarding each person’s vision and dreams for green education in Udaipur.
Open space brainstorming – what do you need to turn your dreams for a green school and community into action? What hurdles are you facing and how can we work together to overcome them? What proposals or suggestions would you like to give to other schools for joint projects?
5:00 – 6:30 pm Closing Reflections and Evaluation of the Day – focus on follow up steps, consider a green jobs fair in July/August, talk about the creation of an active Coalition of Udaipur Educators for Green Schools
ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS DEVELOPING THIS GREEN FESTIVAL
Big Medicine, Contact: Premilla Dixit -- green schools, political economy, science, technology & culture
Gandhi Manav Kalayan Society, Contact : Madan Nagda -- rural sustainability
Himani Kala -- biodiversity
Jagran Jan, Contact: Ganesh Purohit -- medicinal herbs and barefoot doctors
Kishore Saint -- a father of Udaipur citizen's actions
Mohan Singh Mehta Memorial Trust, Contact: Nand Kishore -- democracy & dialog building
P.C. Jain -- rainwater harvesting
Shikshanter, Contact: Manish Jain -- learning societies
Society For Promotion of Wasteland Development (SPWD) Contact: Jagdish Purohit -- rural sustainability
SONAA Engineers Pvt. Ltd., Contact K.P.Singh -- rainwater harvesting & biogas
Vishal -- zero waste
"Green Festival for Educators, Udaipur" Invitation Letter
Dire warning from 2500 scientists at the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change, March 13, 2009
April 2, 2009
Esteemed Udaipur Principals, Educators and Environmental Advocates,
We, the undersigned partnering individuals and organizations request you to join us on May 11, 2009, 10 am to 6:30 pm, at the Mohan Singh Mehta Memorial Trust, for a one-day environmental festival and conversation focused on collaborative strategies to develop greener educational opportunities. We wish to learn of your visions, concerns, needs, and the roadblocks you face regarding this process and how we can help each other reach our goals. You will learn about the many tools, resources, and experienced experts accessible right here in Udaipur for making our schools more eco-friendly examples for our surrounding communities and the nation as a whole.
A morning tea and afternoon lunch will be served. The atmosphere will be warm, congenial and purposeful.
Please Come
* In a spirit of celebration of what people are already working on in Udaipur...
* Come prepared to participate because it will be very interactive…
* Come prepared for lots of sharing of resources on how to get started…
* Come ready to build friendships and partnerships…
* Come with your questions and dilemmas and
* Come prepared to take responsibility for creating solutions…
Invited to Udaipur's first green festival are YOU, our school's principals, teachers, teacher's trainees, non-formal community educators, school board members and environmental experts from all disciplines.
Very Sincerely,
Big Medicine, Contact: Premilla Dixit -- green schools, political economy, science, technology & culture
Gandhi Manav Kalayan Society, Contact : Madan Nagda -- rural sustainability
Himani Kala -- biodiversity
Jagran Jan, Contact: Ganesh Purohit -- medicinal herbs and barefoot doctors
Kishore Saint -- a father of Udaipur citizen's actions
Mohan Singh Mehta Memorial Trust, Contact: Nand Kishore -- democracy & dialog building
P.C. Jain -- rainwater harvesting
Shikshanter, Contact: Manish Jain -- learning societies
Society For Promotion of Wasteland Development (SPWD) Contact: Jagdish Purohit -- rural sustainability
SONAA Engineers Pvt. Ltd., Contact K.P.Singh -- rainwater harvesting & biogas
Vishal -- zero waste
( An initial alphabetically organized list of Partnering Organizations & Individuals, with more to come...)
Background: Organizing Udaipur's First Green Festival for Educators
In September 2008, Big Medicine held a one day seminar for 30 school principals to present:
a) the national mandate and available resources for environmental education,
b) the necessity and methods for green auditing their schools, assessing their resource use and waste generation, and creating baseline data for zero waste, green action plans,
c) to discuss the work already underway in environmental education within the Udaipur school district, and
d) to present the Big Medicine plan to green Mahila Mandal Girls Senior Secondary School, Udaipur, from operations to curriculum.
The seminar, held at Mahila Mandal with the gracious cooperation of Principal Madhu Sareen who packed the room with her cohorts -- local principals-- and the press was very well received.
Addressing the 30 Principals Green Ed Meet is Jaishree Sharma, Green Curricula Coordinator for Schools, National Council for Education Research & Training (NCERT); seated beside the podium, Premilla Dixit, Big Medicine; and consecutively, Madhu Jain, Green Curricula for KG to 5th Grade, NCERT; Mr. Jarori, Chief Guest, District Officer, Udaipur School District; Dr. Madan Gopal Vashnreya, National Secretary, Bharat Vikas Parishad; Mr Asish Shah, Green Schools, Green Audit program, Center For Science & Environment, New Delhi; and Mr. Ganesh Shrotriya, acting President & son of the founders of Mahila Mandal School For Girls, where Big Med is working on a 3-year greening project. Other prominent participants include Mr. Surendra Pandey, Director, C.O. Scouts, who are very involved in Udaipur School District Environmental Education Programs.
Big Medicine's plan for Mahila Mandal was enthusiastically received, and, but for a lack of resources, several Principals expressed keen readiness to move forward with similar plans for their own campuses. In order to close some of the resource gap felt by the Principals, Big Medicine put its nascently developing network of contacts in Udaipur to work, and by late January 2009 (post the religious festival and wedding seasons that occupy all local energy October to early January), called together a coalition of organizations and individuals to consider how we may work together to help green Udaipur's schools.
We formed a plan of action to hold three consecutive events through 2009, 1) to introduce the principals to available local resources at a one-day green festival; 2) to hold a green jobs fair; 3) to call a local/regional/national/global resource sharing, best practices, policy work and action planning conference for green schools. We agreed to consult the Principals to decide on dates. Our initial projection of a date for the green festival in March had to be revised for May, with school board exams running from February through April.
With the experienced leadership of Shikshanter's Manish Jain and the dynamic cooperation of the coalescing organizations and individuals we have brought the first part of our plan underway.
Now we have Udaipur's first Green Festival For Educators, May 11, 2009, with multiple local organizations and individuals collaborating to bring about the event. Space was donated by the prestigious Mohan Singh Mehta Memorial Trust, which has also thrown itself into the task of greening Udaipur schools.
Scenes from Big Med's 30 Principal Green Ed Meeting
forward, the afternoon featured a delightful cultural presentation as well.
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