Away from the frenzied global climate change discussions in the past few weeks children in a small village of Tamil Nadu decided to take the matter in their own hands. Goonj team recently mobilized students of Alinjivakkam village in Thiruvallur district to take up an issue that bothers them and do something on it. Choosing Environment as their theme, students of different age groups made skit shows, art, craft and other activities touching upon issues of deforestation and plastic hazards. They also created an exhibition around plastic ban and expressed the importance of plantation through songs and dance. Under GOONJ’s ‘School To School’ initiative every kid was rewarded with carefully designed Goonj School Kits comprising stationery, books, crayons, water bottle and brand new TOMS shoes. This initiative is building a channel of empathy and school material between big city schools and small village schools to fulfill village school’s material gaps and teach their students about self-reliance & dignity rather than charity.
This is a joint giving effort of GOONJ & TOMS (TOMS.com/improving-lives), a California based market leader in shoes. TOMS started its partnership with Goonj in 2013, pledging to give a new pair of shoes to a child in need on its every purchase, it strengthened the work and also validated our philosophy that small gaps do make a big difference..
You can read more about Goonj’s School to School Initiative here https://goonj.org/s2s and to contribute here https://goonj.org/contribute
