Eco Friendly Volunteers (ECO-V): New Country, New life but with similar activities…

Four months of the year 2018 are already gone….I feel bad for not writing a fresh blog for whole 2018. when I look back it’s being an amazing beginning ….with so many changes and new adjustments. It is a turning point in my life as well as at ECO-V. We as a family shifted to New Delhi, India. So officially now we live in the capital of India. The reason is purely personal as Thushara got promoted to regional office of World health organization, so we decided to join with him as a family. I took it as an opportunity for ECO-V to grow up as an independent organization without me being the driving force . Still I can be the supervisor but ECO-V is not depending on me anymore, which is one of my dreams.

January was the month that I came here and got settled down and took some time to absorb and understand what I want to do in rest of my life and observe the paths I have here. Also it was the month ECO-V was walking through the conservation path without my presence at office. Thanks to technology I got connected with my team via WhatsApp almost every day. So it was constant communication with Waruni, Chapa, Jayani and Wasana. However, I kept travelling on every month to Sri Lanka.

What I missed most was My Chabby (the cat), Kalu (the dog) and our Eco and Metta Gardens. I know they all are under good care. Thanks to online searching I found a farm here – The Edible Routes and made my first official contact with them on 20^th of January. So by 26^th of January I started my own terrace Garden which was truly a happy start for me here in New Delhi. Wow…it was really new as everything I had to purchase such as soil, compost, coco peat, and containers. It showed me how precious these resources are. In Sri Lanka, almost all these resources are freely available. I was so happy to see the progress of my container garden on my terrace.

on 26th of January 2018

On 6th February 2018

On 15th of March 2018

On 27th of march 2018

Well I found my kind of space on my terrace and started making my compost using my kitchen waste.

Home composter made by me using clay pots

My home composter which I bought

I never mixed my waste since I arrived here so it was a very hard battle for me to teach my maid how to separate waste and why not mix it and how precious water and electricity is etc…I started my Eco bricks and constantly talked about it with Edible Routes staff. So it was lot of hard work for me to continue my green practices with my Indian maid and friends.

But luckily I found some like minded parents at The British School New Delhi where Nipuna was schooling at. They loved the idea and we had several meetings with school management board and by 22^nd of April, on the Earth day, we launched our Eco Brick Movement at the school. Also I contributed ideas for new Green policy of the school. How wonderful it was??? I was so thrilled as four months have gone and I never felt that I was not working and I kept walking on my green path and continued the eco practices we were having in Sri Lanka, as a family and professional. So now I feel really happy as somehow I made that difference and also I learnt many new things. I started making my own organic detergents using citrus peels, found soap nuts and other alternatives for cleaning and washing.

Also made some connections with organic markets here and those are growing up spaces exactly like our own Good Market in Colombo.

Saturday organic Market at Vasanth Vihar

At the beginning of April we shifted to a new apartment. It has a beautiful terrace garden. I am proudly announcing that I did not give any of my waste to the waste truck here since we moved into new apartment and continue my zero waste life style while teaching others how to do it. I have my own Eco bricks, composter and place for collection of recyclable waste. So I am managing my own waste very responsibly.

Our own Terrace garden (did not create by me but the owner of apartment did)

As of today I am a member of some wonderful networks here together we are trying our best to fight with air pollution, sustainable waste management and I am learning about trees and butterflies of India. I already conducted some training workshops, presentations on 10R and Eco bricks at schools and public. Planted trees too.