On a Sunday morning in December month, OES Children’s Farm Campus had some young guests from FHD India an architectural firm. We had a team of young architects visit the farm to participate in different farm activities to give them an introductory experience of natural farming.
The day started with all of them deboarding the bus near the gates of OES Farm and walking upto the tent where they made themselves comfortable. They had some water, removed their shoes, and folded up their pants up to their knees to get ready for entering the fields and start farming tasks planned for them by the OES team. Mr.Venkatesh Nallamilli, Nangavamsi Neelam, and Garima Goel welcomed all of them. Garima Goel initiated the program by introducing Organo Et School and its various programs. Mrs.Meena Murugappan very interestingly explained the importance of sustainability for the current generation of architects. She said it was almost inevitable for them to adapt sustainability in their designs and work as inclusively as possible.
This introduction was followed by Mr.Venkatesh guiding the team towards the farm beds with lush green spinach waiting to be harvested. Each of the participants was given a pair of scissors and cloth harvest bags to begin the harvest activity with Venkatesh Nallamilli and Ms.Meena Murugappan demonstrating the harvest process. All the participants were asked to pair up for this first activity and each pair was allotted a farm patch 10 ft X 4 ft size with lush green spinach growing in it. As soon as they were told to start they all enthusiastically bent and squatted down to reach for the fresh spinach leaves to hold 1 plant at a time and cut it close to the ground, to collect the leaves into their respective bags. Each one of them collected almost 5 kg of palak leaves. Everyone enjoyed and experienced a sense of satisfaction performing the harvesting act.
The next activity planned by the OES team for the FHD team was “Making Jeevamrutham”- a Biofertilizer. All the participants sat in a circle facing their activity stations placed nicely on the farm-land having small buckets with water, earthen diyas with cow dung, cow urine, some jaggery, and besan along with some soil collected from a shaded place. These constitute the ingredients for making Jeevamrutham. All members sat on the ground and were asked to make themselves comfortable while sitting on the soil. Venkatesh guided them on how to proceed with the process and they mixed all the above ingredients with their hands in water buckets.
Having done this activity they all moved to another section of the farm, where they were to make fresh farm patches in teams of twos. They used spades to bund the soil around rectangular patches they made for fresh sowing activity. They all enjoyed this activity as it was very different from the usual. It was the first time for some of them to work with spades. They seem to enjoy working with the soil in the fresh air that morning.
Now, it was time for a hot breakfast, after a hard morning’s labour. They all collected under the tent and experienced the coolness of shade after being on the open farm for almost 2 hours. This was a rare kind of experience for most of them. They all enjoyed the breakfast and relaxed with a cup of fresh lime. The food had never tasted so good before…..
Sharing their experiences, most of them said that it was a pleasant, unusual, and refreshing day for them. They all expressed their desire to revisit the farm with their family or friends at the earliest date.
We recognize that for any positive impact to be sustainable, it must be long-term and inter-generational. Organo Et School strives to create an apt learning environment that will support and empower families as well as individuals to embrace sustainable living mindsets and habits.
Organo Et School is a learning initiative set up by Organo in 2017 and has been facilitating field visits and workshops for Schools and Interest Groups. Organo Et School has had over 25+ schools, 6500+ students and 3000+ adults participate over the last 5 years.
We believe in connecting children & adults with nature.
Please send your queries to us at oes@organo.co.in and by phone 9154100775 today!
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