Environmental Journalism in India
From March 12-24th, 2015, I had the opportunity to travel to India with my Environmental Journalism course. While there, we partnered with the N.M. Sadguru Water Development Foundation, which has been working for forty years to provide access to water year-round for tribal villages in the arid state of Gujarat. Over the course of five days during the trip, we split into groups and visited a number of initiatives that Sadguru has developed in these villages to improve their water resources, agricultural economy, and community empowerment.
My group was assigned to three different initiatives aimed to support the tribal women and foster their personal growth as well as their leadership and business skills: the dairy cooperative, village watershed committee, and the self-help groups. On these visits, we interviewed members of the villages about the impact that Sadguru has had on their lives. Many of them said that they had to migrate and live on the roads prior to the intervention of Sadguru. Now they stay in their villages throughout the year and can farm for three seasons rather than just one because they still have water and fertile fields even in growing dry heat. The women have started their own businesses and manage the fields. They have developed a better sense of community and have been allowed the chance to establish their homes and families.
I was absolutely blown away and inspired by the clearly significant progress Sadguru has made in these villages. Even though I don’t know exactly what life was like for them prior to these projects, and I definitely can’t even begin to relate, I could sense their pride in what they had accomplished in conjunction with Sadguru. In a time where environmental degradation, especially in terms of water resource overuse, is so rampant, it was refreshing to see such positive progress. I hope that I can take both what I have learned about life and what I've learned about water scarcity and apply them to my future career in this area of environmental science. As an activist, it's so important to be both emotionally intelligent and well-versed on the issues you are tackling, and this trip definitely taught me a great deal about both. I also hope that I can be an ally for Sadguru going into the future and spread the word about the amazing work they're doing. If anything, I believe that investment in local organizations helping their own communities is vital to the success of environmental movements.
My group was assigned to three different initiatives aimed to support the tribal women and foster their personal growth as well as their leadership and business skills: the dairy cooperative, village watershed committee, and the self-help groups. On these visits, we interviewed members of the villages about the impact that Sadguru has had on their lives. Many of them said that they had to migrate and live on the roads prior to the intervention of Sadguru. Now they stay in their villages throughout the year and can farm for three seasons rather than just one because they still have water and fertile fields even in growing dry heat. The women have started their own businesses and manage the fields. They have developed a better sense of community and have been allowed the chance to establish their homes and families.
I was absolutely blown away and inspired by the clearly significant progress Sadguru has made in these villages. Even though I don’t know exactly what life was like for them prior to these projects, and I definitely can’t even begin to relate, I could sense their pride in what they had accomplished in conjunction with Sadguru. In a time where environmental degradation, especially in terms of water resource overuse, is so rampant, it was refreshing to see such positive progress. I hope that I can take both what I have learned about life and what I've learned about water scarcity and apply them to my future career in this area of environmental science. As an activist, it's so important to be both emotionally intelligent and well-versed on the issues you are tackling, and this trip definitely taught me a great deal about both. I also hope that I can be an ally for Sadguru going into the future and spread the word about the amazing work they're doing. If anything, I believe that investment in local organizations helping their own communities is vital to the success of environmental movements.
Experience Artifacts:
Included here are two of the projects I created based around our trip to India. The first is a video I produced which discusses the emotional takeaways from the trip. Though I learned a lot about Sadguru’s projects and how they’ve managed to conserve water and soil, I learned much more about family, love, and life from the people of India. Because our trip also included sightseeing in a few different cities, I wanted to showcase that as well and share all of the amazing things I was able to see while there.
At the bottom is one of the presentation pieces my group produced while in India to show the people of Sadguru and the village leaders what we learned about the specifics of the projects we visited. It was the precursor to our journalistic pieces about each initiative, and I chose to include it as well because it is more of an environmental journalism piece than the video, which is a lot more personal. I wanted people to see the tangible differences that Sadguru has made on the village people along with the impact they made on me.
Included here are two of the projects I created based around our trip to India. The first is a video I produced which discusses the emotional takeaways from the trip. Though I learned a lot about Sadguru’s projects and how they’ve managed to conserve water and soil, I learned much more about family, love, and life from the people of India. Because our trip also included sightseeing in a few different cities, I wanted to showcase that as well and share all of the amazing things I was able to see while there.
At the bottom is one of the presentation pieces my group produced while in India to show the people of Sadguru and the village leaders what we learned about the specifics of the projects we visited. It was the precursor to our journalistic pieces about each initiative, and I chose to include it as well because it is more of an environmental journalism piece than the video, which is a lot more personal. I wanted people to see the tangible differences that Sadguru has made on the village people along with the impact they made on me.