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[DRAFT]

Visible Results of Transformation

The campus was a vast barren land on 8 Jan 2016 when we came into the campus. The school had only
4 regular teachers and the rest were teachers engaged on contractual basis. What the Vidyalaya needed
was a team work to make the campus green. There was only one possibility. Involving other
organisations of the state, parents and the students through motivation. The University of Horticulture
was the first to be approached for saplings. Though saplings were now available, the school could not
make so many pits manually since it is on a rocky terrain. A local body ―Nirmiti Kendra‖ offered to
provide JCB for two days for digging pits. The forest department of the state provided the school with
more saplings and offered the manpower needed. Around 600 saplings were planted. But maintaining
was a herculean task for more than one reason. First the campus with 16 acres needed watering. Next
there is a single bore well and hardly two water taps on campus and then inadequate manpower and
the chain linked barricading dividing the campus left lot many plants far away from the building.
Those parents who were in working in the Horticulture University, offered constructive suggestions,
like covering the root area of the saplings with stones and dry leaves to maintain moisture etc. A
water trolley was put into service with the gardener and a housekeeping staff on rotation were asked to
water those saplings which were far off the campus. Plants which were near the campus were adopted
by students and were motivated to give half a bottle of water to their adopted plant at the time of
leaving the school. After surviving one summer most of the saplings started looking greener and
bigger. Motivated by the success, the students started donating a sapling on their birthdays and so did
the teachers with a word that planting a sapling alone is not the end but that sapling‘s watering
responsibility was with the student who planted it. Due to the extreme heat around 150 saplings did
not survive the first summer. Hence additional 300 saplings were planted this summer

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