2022
[RECAP] Join us for Free Rain
I have hosted several meet-ups at various other ecosystems and geographical locations which have influenced many lives and have made me feel complete. But this one meet-up just made me feel like I have influenced the whole world as well as few following generations. It’s all about planting some long living friends. Yeah! They are none other than trees.
Tree plantation has become common among social service enthusiasts as well as environmental enthusiasts who realize depreciating pattern of the earth as a suitable place to live. However, this time I wanted to make it in a different way creating awareness among the community as well. When I proposed this concept among Batticaloa Local Guides for the first time, they came up with a lot of suggestions as well as positive feedback. I volunteered to buy some plants from my pocket and plant them at several places of the town. Thinesh, out of the crowd, told that he could help us get some free plants and give them free to the community through one society. Thinesh joined us from my last meet up hosted for differently abled people. He is a volunteer who has been doing many services in Batticaloa district.
The special component of the meet up was the participation some visually impaired local guides. They become part of our journey from my last meet up conducted for the visually impaired where I taught them the use of technology for visually impaired. They have been literally impressed and become contributors. I was scared first to take them on this long walk considering the difficulties they could face on the road walking long way. But, they literally wanted to join us compulsorily at least for a small fragment of the walk. So we took them too.
I changed the location into closer place to their residence considering their convenience.
However, meet up was planned to start at 10.00 am but these guys gathered at 8.30. am. This motivated me in a way that I am being part of a very enthusiastic team. Someone have seen me working in my garden tagging trees and have passed the message to other local guides and have gathered the rest of the people to the meet-up point as early as possible too. One brought wheelbarrow from a nearby place, the other brought shovel.
Preparation of tags for trees was intentionally done by me to pass a message about Local Guides. There were many ideas from many people when I asked for suggestions among our Batticaloa local guides community. What I did was, I cut plastic sheets into equal sized pieces, covered it with another plastic and tied it with monofilament thread to make sure it does not restrict the growth of the plant at the same time it will stay on the plant for really long time without decaying. Guess what was written on the tags? It is none other than the names of some active Local guides living around the world and are active on connect. Yeah! I have planted some long living friends.
(@TraciC, @KarenVChin, @LucioV, @JeslynL and others)
When I gathered, the plants from Forest department, there was another surprise waiting for us. The plants were way too bigger than what we expected. They were all around 45 -65 cm tall. So I decided to stack them all in my car and did. The car was like a forest until we reached home. We unloaded all the plants at the place we planned to start the event on the previous day evening and I did all the preparatory measures for tagging and stuff.
The sequence of the activity was to plant a tree, put a name tag, capture the GPS location, capture a photo and upload to my maps and monitor the progress of the growth. To ensure sustainability, we found some environmental brigadiers who are at schools to take care and water the plants. No one refused. On our way, we found a school. They wanted around 8 trees to plant in their playground premises. They asked about the names printed in the tags. I told, these are local guides like me living around the world and are connected through the common network called LG-connect. Also, the kids wanted to have a selfie with us. We gave them badges too. They have promised that they will be taking care of the trees. Also, we told, we will be visiting their school every month and looking at the progress, we will be giving candies for the best performers.
After a while, the hot sun drained out our energy and we all got tired. Soon we boosted back the energy with a special king coconut water with lemon which tasted like the world’s best beverage at that time.
Then we followed to a Church, then a traffic police booth. There were no big trees nearby. When we spoke to the Traffic police officer about having some free shades to his booth in future, he enthusiastically came from to plant it himself aiming that it would give shade to his friends who will be at duty in that police booth in future too. It was the tree with your name @NunungAfuah. Have a look! Beware!, you will be closely monitored by police for the next few years.
Next destination was St.Lourdes church. They told that they have been looking for trees. They gave us cool drinks and all and appreciated our service to the country as well as the environment. There was a nursery nearby, and they already has plants on pots with names written on who takes care of it. It was really impressive to see the little one’s names on each little plants they had.
Then, on our way back we met a foreigner at Vimochana illam, which is an alcohol and drug rehabilitation center. This man have been the volunteering the alcohol victims residing at this center for the past few months. He was impressed by what we did. We explained about the LG too.
Also, we have a backup plan of replanting these trees. I am growing some of this similar species in my backyard and whenever a tree has been reported dead from the field, we will be replacing that plant with the plant of the same height. However, our target is to plant 1000 trees. Therefore, everyone is free to plant a tree anywhere on the earth and join us in this “mapped” mission of greening the world.
Thanulukshan, is from Jafna Local Guides and he has come from a really long way just to attend this meetup. Thanks for your participation @ThanulakshanS
I am making a portal where the progress of these trees will be uploaded and all the trees planted on this day can be viewed here. However, it will take about a week for me to complete this task in the middle of my own schedules. Everyone can plant a tree and post it on the portal.
It was a complete team effort, what we did was, well planned well and executed the mission. @Kajan746, who joined us new, filled our checklist as name height and other details of the tree planted, @DilibAjanthM measured the height and put tags on the plants, I was mapping them and was uploading photos. This helped us complete the task on time with the support of everyone.
There were several people questioning us curiously on what we are doing, walking along the road with a wheelbarrow and some plants. For instance, one girl asked about the name @ErmesT, tagged in one plant, I told he is also a local guide like me who does campaigns in the theme of “Local Guides clean the world”. They were surprised to hear that there are people who volunteer for Google maps while doing good deeds to make the world a better place to live as well. As I promised, I gave Tshirts to the participants. I gave them badges too. Dinesh helped the visually impaired to put their badges on
This time, there was an interesting new member despite of the other days. He is one of our Local guide @SahaJack dad. He is another highlight at the meet-up. He has been as teacher and an In-service advisor for business studies and accountings. He has been observing Jackson’s progress being a local guide and has decided to join us too.
After planting all, except the backup plants which are still standing on my backyard, everyone returned home exhausted by the hot sun, but with a heart full of joy and pleasure of planting many long-living friends around Batticaloa. Looking forward to continuing this mission and reach my target of planting 1000 trees.
Finally, we had snacks at Café Chill and went home with happy 🙂
