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Ecologise Hyderabad: Workshops for Sustainability and Equality
Some of us have recently created a small group called ‘Ecologise Hyderabad’. The aim of the group is to look at the many ecological crises of the city holistically, interact with experts and social activist and run programmes to strengthen the efforts of the activists in running green programmes in different localities of the city.
Recently we have created a small group called ‘Ecologise Hyderabad’. The aim of the group is to look at the ecological crisis of the city holistically, interact with experts and social activist and run programmes to strengthen the efforts of the activists in running green programmes in different localities of the city. We emphasize that there are several issues – not just water – waste management, home composting, terrace gardens, transport, health, education etc. and eventually in each localities we have to run several programmes.
Ecologise Hyderabad is an idea, a programme to address these issues with the resources available within the city. There are scholars, social groups, activist groups, ngos who have analyzed these issues concretely and have done significant work towards solving them. The idea is to expose our citizens to these ideas and expand the work. ‘The Hyderabad Green Directory’ prepared by this author gives an idea of the resources available in the city.
We are planning to run several workshops, one day each for each topic. There has been tremendous response to our first workshop on Rain Water Harvesting at La Makaan on May 15, 2016. It was announced by La Makaan through their face book page. We got 1251 as ‘interested’ and 424 as ‘going’. So we had to introduce registration and make the event ‘invite’ only. To that also we have got 92 responses in a couple of days. The capacity of the hall is only 40! The coordinator is Mayank Ale who is 20 year old and the compeer is Deepa Kiran 40, who is a story teller. We are seeing to it that young people lead the event.
All this shows that probably the time has come for these issues to become centre stage in the citizen’s concern!
[View announcement for our first workshop on rainwater harvesting]
The Dying City and the City of Tomorrow
The City is dying – not only Hyderabad but all big cities – cities that have grown because of cheap petroleum. While there has been a fall in petroleum prices in the last year, the era of cheap and plentiful oil is essentially over. Cities are energy consumers, not producers. With the fossil fuel era coming to a close, and no viable alternative energy source visible on the horizon, cities as they exist today are unsustainable. They will not disappear overnight, but will perforce shrink. If such a shrink is not to be chaotic, it is better to plan their shrink from now.
Hyderabad Today
We are living in a city that has become unsustainable. It has reached such a dangerous level that it will explode into a collapse. Three things appear to be important elements in this: 1. Resource constraint-particularly water, 2. extreme pollution levels in food, drink and air and 3. increasing inequalities.
The response of people who have access to resources is to move to live in fortresses known as ‘Gated Communities’. While it can and does give temporary relief to some for some time it is not a long term solution. It cannot solve the problem of depleting resources.
A saner response would be, instead of waiting for collapse and the chaos that would follow, leading to large scale riots and violence; we work towards a gradual transition to a more sustainable model that would help ALL to survive reasonably.
In a world of depleting resources this implies that we reduce our consumption and share our excess resources with those who have less.
The Issues
- Water
- Waste Management
- Food pollution, home composting and home gardens
- Transport
- Slums and housing
- Energy
- Education
- Health
- Air pollution, green lungs and parks
- Domestic animals
- Wild life
- Heritage
Objectives
The objective of the programme is to help urban community activists – woman or man- who is in early 30s, and is involved in local community work with one or more green issues listed above. The idea is to help such a person with more knowledge and introduce her to other resources available in the city.
Programme
To begin with we plan to hold a one day workshop with orgainsers and major resource persons to work out the details of the programme.
We plan to hold a series of one day programmes on these issues. Only one issue will be dealt on each day. It will have a minimum of two presentations – one analyzing the issue and the other solutions tried and implemented in the city. There can also be films which show case how the problem has been tackled at other places. We also hope that we will be able to bring out booklets as the outcome of the workshop which will have a people’s manifesto along with the analysis and solution of the problem.
The first set of workshop will be conducted at a central place in the city. They can be repeated in localities of the participants who already have a programme that address some of these issues.
Participant Profile
The ideal participant is a person – woman or man – who is in early 30s, and is involved in local community work with one or more green issues listed above.
Finances
It is not a funded programme. The participant organizations and individuals will fund the expenses of the programme.
From Unsustainable to Sustainable
From Inequality to Equality
From Concrete Jungle to Garden City
CONTACT
Email: t.vijayendra@gmail.com
Mobile: +91 94907 05634
View announcement for our first workshop on rainwater harvesting