The Art of Living is celebrating the World Environment Day as a part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav by announcing key initiatives to bolster building a sustainable, peaceful, strong and green India. AoL is reviving rivers, planting trees, providing solar electricity to schools in border villages, and more.
Under the river rejuvenation project, 49 rivers (streams) in 5 Indian states are being revived by building more than 41,000 recharge structures and planting 6,56,944 trees. Over 81 million trees have been planted all over the globe by The Art of Living volunteers. The Art of Living has set up 52 skill development centres and 22 in prisons across India. It has also solar electrified 145 schools of which 20 are in the border villages.
In continuation to this, as part of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav celebrations, The Art of Living will be rejuvenating 75 rivers; planting 75 lakh trees; rolling out 75 skill development centres; 75 digital literacy centres in prisons; and solar electrifying 75 schools in border villages.
"On this environment day, as we celebrate Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, let's take the sankalpa to keep the water, air and earth pure. Let us save every drop of water. Our organization has taken up the responsibility for reviving and rejuvenating 75 rivers. We also need to support and encourage the use of solar and wind power," said Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, global humanitarian and founder of The Art of Living.
Addressing various challenges on national front
The Art of Living's social projects team has been working towards offering holistic solutions for the social, economic and environmental challenges faced by the country. It does so by building and maintaining partnerships with local communities and through collaborations with corporations, government and non-governmental organizations, developmental agencies and foundations.
"The Art of Living has been working in crucial areas of sustainable development for the last 40 years and the results are there for everyone to see. We not only rejuvenate rivers and increase the water table but also build and empower local communities. Our river rejuvenation projects have so far benefited over 34.5 million people already in more than 12000 villages," said Prasana Prabhu, Chairman, Vyakti Vikas Kendra India (The Art of Living).
Some of the key projects include River Rejuvenation, Natural Farming, Skill Development, Free Schools, Disaster Relief, Women Empowerment, Rural Development, Prisoner Rehabilitation, and Peace Initiatives.
In Natural Farming, about 22,00,000 farmers have been trained across India. Of these, 1,15,000 farmers belonged to suicide-prone districts. From 2018 to 2020, 24,959 farmers were trained, of whom 28.8% were women. Youth have also been trained to become farm managers. The efforts collectively have resulted in 80% cost reduction per acre as compared to chemical farming, while 56,157 acres of land have been converted to climate-resilient agricultural lands.
