PROJECT

GREENHANDS
“Trees and humans are in an intimate relationships.”
By- Ashmita Baidya(19021141026)
Introduction
Isha Foundation: A non-governmental organization
that worked with a mission towards the joy and well
being of the individual and society.
o Sports
o Yoga
o Festivities
o Medical
o Spirituality
o Project Greenhands

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Why Project Greenhands?

o Becoming desert
o Need for organic manure
o Animal slaughtering and trees cut
o Plant trees in people’s mind
o Communities, children, farmers, college students
o Young generation to take care of earth
o Inspiration and sustainable development

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 How to do it?
o #trees for all- giving trees on occasions
o #isha agro movement- from chemical to organic
manures, zero budget natural farming
o #green school movement
o #trees for life- agroforestry
o 10-15 lakhs to 20 crores- land invested in trees.
o Awareness creation
o Resource mobilisation

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 Processes involved
 Creating awareness
o Conduct massive campaigns
o Sapling distribution
o Volunteer meetings
o Involvement of multiple media channels
o Isha Agro Movement
o Trees for life
o Isha Gramotsavam
o International initiatives

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 “ In the Indian culture, there are temples for trees, people worship trees;
It’s a very common practice. It is not a question of a custom.
It came from a certain experience and understanding. It is a certain depth of experience and understanding- you understand that
whatever nurtures your life is worth worshipping.”
~ Sadhguru

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 Community involved
o Community involvement became the essence of the project
o Energize community by involving farmers, school-going
children, businessmen, academicians, parents, politicians,
etc.
o Public participation comprises of 1449 people.
o Unique in its own way because common people are
involved in this project in planting trees.

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 Business Organisations
o Support from many business organizations:
- Henkel India ltd.
- Indian overseas bank
- Yves Rocher
- Ananda Vikatan
- Apollo Hospitals
- Ashok Leyland

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 Educational Institutions and NGOs

o National Cadet Corps(NCC) and National Service

Scheme(NSS) participated in generating awareness.
o National Institute of Technology(NIT), Trichy, an example
of educational institutes supporting Greenhands.
o More than 500 saplings, on World Environment Day,
2008(June 5) were planted at various schools at
Coimbatore.

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 Resource Mobilisation
o Goal: Planting 114 million trees
o Challenge:
- 1 sapling costs Rs. 40 to nurture, plant and monitor for a
year
- They did not have sufficient funds in their bank accounts,
so raising funds was the biggest concerns
o Support:
- Isha Foundation
- By increasing focus on individual donors through web
based fundraising

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 Contribution option to donors
• 1.Establish a nursery : Training people, Growing the saplings,
Distribution
• (Rs 20/sapling and minimum contribution Rs 400)
• 2.Agro Foresting : Planting trees on farm lands.
• (Rs 40/sapling and minimum contribution Rs 800)
• 3. Planting fruit trees in villages and residential areas
• (minimum contribution Rs 1600)
• 4.Running awareness workshops
• (minimum contribution Rs 10000)
• 5.Green rural schools and colleges : to improve air quality and
provide shade
• (Rs 200/sapling and minimum contribution Rs 16000)
o Gift of trees and Gift Certificates helped in improving the funds
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 Project Monitoring
o Measures taken:
o Guidance from the advisory board at all levels of project implementation
o Maintenance of records starting from
• -Collection of seeds
• -Establishing nurseries
• -Development of planting areas
o Surveys
o Quality tests
o Registering the names of the committed land owners
o Database management of sapling distribution and planting
o Necessary support systems including regular communication with
regional offices
o Quarterly reports
o Constantly updating the website with outcomes and statistics

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 Expected risks and challenges
o Some of the expected risks were:
• -Natural calamities
• -Non cooperation of villagers
• -Financial risk
• -Nurturing of saplings
o Challenges
• -Documentation – due to lack of technical skills and
communication skills
• -Also, collecting data is a difficult task but is very crucial for
project analysis, impact analysis etc..
• -Guinness world records (actual- 11lacs, documented-8.5lacs)
• -65-70% of saplings were converted into trees, new goal is to
reach 75%

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 People Dynamics
o The project started off with two departments – nursery raising
and plantation
o As the work scaled up, they had MIS, accounts and
fundraising
o In July 2009, Greenhands had 36 employees with 26 focusing
on plantation activities and 10 people for nursery development
o The notable aspect of the project regards to the people
involved is that they don’t compare each person with another’s
work.
o They choose to believe that everyone is giving their best and
that’s different for different people.
o Isha has a number of social projects so they plan on giving
importance to each of it all

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 Transformatory Nature
o Greenhands had undergone major changes with respect to
its plantation activities.
o After 2005, they focused on planting trees that would be
useful like fruit trees and timber trees.
o After 2007, they stopped planting saplings by the side of
the road because they were not sure who would take care
of these plants
o And they had demarcated Tamilnadu into 11 ecological
zones
o They analyzed as to what trees could grow better in what
zone and accordingly planted those trees.
o Conference at St. Joseph’s college in Trichy attracted more
young volunteers.
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 Expanding Endeavours
o Greenhands geographical expansion received mixed
responses.
o TERI and Initiative for greening Delhi NCR
o People at Greenhands were clear about the side
effects of energy intensive agriculture model and
environmental degradation
o Sadhguru wanted to do something in the next 6-8
years to have a viable green cover by 15 years
o Not just geographical expansion but also innovation
expansion
o Plant action, a not-for-profit initiative in satellite
imagery to register new plantation and its growth
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THANK YOU

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