World water day celebrations at RRNagar , Bengaluru

 Some twenty years back, a lush green and tranquil paradise....  RRNagar currently has turned into a environmental disaster area  with garbage strewn all over the place , it's beautiful lakes turned into a stinking cesspool , and hundreds of tree being felled in the name of progress. Groundwater tables are disappearing and water crisis is looming large on the horizon. 

We the residents realized that complaints to the governing body brought forth no solution to the impending disaster.

So a group called "RRNagar - I care" was born........ a group formed by the concerned residents of our locality. Its main objective is to awaken the residents of RRNagar to the collective problems we are all facing and to initiate all resisdents to work together for a “Clean and Green RR Nagar”. 

The first of its initiative was the celebration of the International World Water Day , with a theme that " Every drop counts" . Though the World Water day officially  falls on 22nd March , we decided to hold our celebrations on Sunday the  24th of March 2013 ... so that we could rope in the children of RRNagar . 

The group came together to spread awareness  on the importance of water & depletion in the water table in our once abundant region. And who are more suitable to drive the message  other than our little budding artists? A painting competition was held for the children with a theme “Every drop counts” in one of the parks in our area. The ideas that the little one depicted the theme were truely amazing. 

Here are a couple of pictures of  the painting competition in progress.

After the painting event , the children participated in a " Walk for Water" event . The children accompanied with adults  took to the street of RRNagar , with placards and pots on their head and  marched  to the drum beats and shouts of " Save Water, Save Life" towards theHalagevaderahalli lake in our locality  , which is presently under restoration. 

 

See our little " Green  Warriors " walking towards the Lake, creating awareness about the importance of water conservation. Truly this event shows that " We have not inherited this planet from our ancestors , but have actually borrowed it from our children"

 

 

 The finale to the event was the display of all the painting strung on a rope between tree. They reminded me of the Tibetan tradition of stringing  "Prayer flag " at places of worship , which flutters with the winds and  scatters  far and wide , the goodwill , blessing and prayers for protection and prosperity for all living and non-living beings of the earth . Hopefully ,these painting fluttering in the winds over the lake will similarly carry the message of the "call for action for a sustainable  and water abundant future for all " .  

 We had a small skit by children highlighting how water is being wasted in our household as part of our daily activity followed by the prize distribution.

 Two prize winning painting are shown below. 

Thank you  Rahul, Shalini , Dilip and Dhruv( our 12 year old budding photographer :-) ) for taking pictures of the event .