Initiative towards environment is happening all over the world. People are following Di Caprio, Greta Thunberg as they put their heart and soul towards nature. Meanwhile, I met a person who loves nature as much as foreign environmentalists do and he is the current synonym of volunteering.
Saran Raj is 29 years old and he is planting trees for six years. He intends to divert youngsters of this age to drop bad habits and focus on Nature. He is succeeding in it of course. He is from Nathanallur Village which is in Kanchipuram district. We are beyond blessed to have such selfless hearts in our land and here is our conversation with him.
How did this all start ?
From childhood, I always wanted to know whatever happening in my village. And after becoming an adult, I always keep track on children. To pursue after 8th grade, students have to travel to Kanchipuram. There some of the young bloods got influenced in a bad way. To bring them back to track, I formed cricket and kabbadi teams which didn’t result for what I planned.
I asked myself, why am not interested in these habits like them?
I “self-realized” that I love Nature more than anything else.
I offered saplings for free to those students and they showed their keen towards it.
Tell us about your team.
I started with 38 people but few couldn’t join with me now as they are working in different places. We received criticism initially but one from our team scored more than 470 in 10th exam and made our team stronger.
Acknowledgments received for your contributions!
We are one of the awardees in ” Best 100 youngsters of Tamilnadu” which was organised by Puthiya Thalaimurai.
We were also identified by “Colours” television and they telecasted a video of us planting saplings in ” Namma Ooru Hero” We have received around 15 awards so far.
Do you have any other visions ?
We took ” no plastic bags” initiative in our village by ordering cloth bags from a person named Sarvana Perumal from Chennai and people of our village are following to use cloth bags now.
We started setting up the ponds too. We have cleaned around 5-6 ponds in and near our village.
To bring back the farmers to the field, last year along with some youngsters we cleaned and had set up some of the agriculture lands in our village.
Whats happening now in your life ?
To improve the livelihood of birds we are planning to grow trees near the water bodies. To boost that movement we are planning to celebrate in Pallavaram Putheri Yeri on 23rd of this November.
Saran says, “If we want our next generation children to inhale pure air, trees are mandatory and there is no replacement“.
