The Mytree (a play on the word maitri meaning friendship or amity) initiative is two-pronged with ‘Each One Plant Two’ and ‘Urban Dense Forestation’ being the two subheads under the initiative. To create Urban Dense Forests, the Satsang Foundation has partnered with Exnora International. The latest in the series of projects is the plantation drive at the Biosciences Department of Sri Padmavathi Mahila Visva Vidyalaya at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. This initiative was sponsored by AGS Health under their AGS Cares CSR initiative. The event was attended by over 100 employees of AGS Health, 70+ students of the Bio Sciences department of the University, the Vice Chancellor of SPMVV – Prof. Jamuna Duvurru, The Registrar – Prof. D Mamatha, Director Operations, AGS Health, Tirupati – Mr. Thillai Govindam, along with volunteers from the Satsang Foundation and Exnora International.
Over 1000 trees were planted in about 5000 sq ft of land. The trees were chosen and the planting grid designed based on the Miyawaki Dense Forest concept as adapted to local conditions. While the land was provided by the University, the complete preparation of the land, choice of plants, planting grid and other design considerations were done by the Satsang and Exnora team. SPMVV is one of the greenest campuses in the country and has also been chosen by the Union Ministry for Environment to be one of the institutions targeting a net Zero Carbon Footprint. This Dense Forest initiative is a step in achieving that goal.
The event was started with an invocation by the students, followed by a welcome address by R Ganesh Kumar from The Satsang Foundation explaining the concept of the urban dense forest. Prof. Mamatha, Mr. Thillai Govindam, Prof. Jamuna Duvurru (Vice Chancellor) then addressed the assembled gathering. They all emphasized the importance of this initiative of planting forests. A vote of thanks was given by Mrs. Radha Srinivasan from Exnora International.
Over 1000 saplings were then planted in designated locations by the 250+ assembled participants. It was a wonderful sight and within 20 minutes the forest was set up. An Environment pledge was then taken which was administered by Mr. Ganesh from the Satsang Foundation.
To volunteer or donate saplings for this project please contact connect@satsang-foundation.org.
