Eco Friendly Volunteers (ECO-V): February 2024

Dear All,

It's been 23 years for ECO-V. Back in 2001, some of you were invited to my home to discuss starting an organisation. Since then we have had so many activities towards protecting Nature. Mainly towards behavioral changes among us. But we never wanted to grow up as a large organisation. It was always running at low levels but with a greater positive impact among whoever around us and whatever we did. Please check our website www.eco-v.org

Since I moved to India 7 years ago with my family many things have changed. We do not have any more foreign donors for our projects. It's just because I personally did not want to receive big money and take the responsibility of doing projects when I am not in the country. But we never closed down our office even during the Pandemic. Still we are running our selected activities. Sometimes I miss our busy days with so many field projects taking place, research and education but again I am quite content with whatever is happening today.

We have 5 Metta Gardens functioning with personal sponsorships, Zero waste School - St. Michaels College, Kollupitiya with the sponsorship of Cinnamon Grand Hotel, Eco products promotions and sale with the partnership of Sustainablee, and our own Metta Garden produce sale to local kiosk and nursery plants selling to a nearby plant nursery. Other than our own staff we are paying for three other women who make our products. We have been sponsoring a needy child at SOS for last 9 years and that scholarship goes out from our own earnings. So ECO-V has become a self sustainable organisation for last 7 years.

We have been practicing conscious living and zero waste office for the last 23 years and we are very proud of that. Our carbon foot print is very low and truly in ecofriendly practices. We have two staff members including very energetic Pasini Alwis, a young agriculture graduate who looks after all the gardens and eco product sales. Last year we managed to send her for a training on climate change in Thailand and ECO-V sponsored 50% of this tour. Awantha is our young gardener who looks after the Metta Garden and nursery by assisting Pasini. I visit Sri Lanka every other month and then we do training and awareness sessions for the community.

We keep our face book pages updated about our activities and restarted our newsletter electronically this year.

So, I just wanted to update you all about us and please feel free to get involved with us in our activities or visit our gardens to learn about organic gardening and protecting biodiversity and buy our eco-friendly products. Those contributions will help us to build up our finances and do our Nature related charity work too.

We are very much looking forward to running another Yathra but still feel the country's situation is not favorable for such a big campaign. Therefore, we decided to run a residential training programme on climate change this year. Please feel free to share your ideas with us please do let us know if you would like to get involved actively. Also please send us your suggestions or what you expect from us and what you can do to help us going forward.

I thank you all for being with us at the moment and trusting me. Special thank goes to all garden owners who trusted us and gave the responsibility to improve their gardens with Metta Concept, which is helping people and our Nature. This is one of our passionate projects and we truly believe in it as it helps healing people and healing Nature. ECO-V journey will continue like this.....

Almost forgot!! We received an award last year December from the Green Building Association in Sri Lanka. Its for the "Green Community Commitment of the year"