Here at Amrita Virtual Academy, we are always so excited to see positive change in the community, especially when the principles of our courses—love, knowledge, evolution, service & sustainability— radiate out into the world. Here are some amazing local community updates, inspired by Meenamba’s Amrita Upcycling projects.
At Amrita University, Amritapuri campus, located just across the bridge from Amma’s Amritapuri ashram, there was a special week from November 15-20, 2025 to support Women’s Empowerment. At that time, eleven Computer Science & Engineering students successfully connected with a local women’s tailoring unit—a self-help group supporting local women—to support their artisan handicrafts businesses.
To incorporate an ecological focus into the project, a meeting was held to find reusable materials within the university that could be upcycled. This provided participating women with free resources while also minimizing waste. A solid plan for the regular collection of the selected materials—coffee bags, standard uniforms, lab coats, college lanyards, and old umbrellas—was put in place.
Students supported not only the creation of the goods, but also helped in promoting the artisanal handicrafts across the Amrita University campus. Amrita students designed and displayed promotional posters, boosting the local women’s visibility and expanding their customer base.
The students also connected with Meenamba, the Amrita Virtual Academy instructor also known as the “Plastic Woman,” who shared her knowledge on upcycling, environmental responsibility, and purposeful living. After seeing her handmade upcycled products, the students committed to starting their own collection drive, beginning with old umbrellas, to support similar projects. This valuable experience highlighted the significance of sustainable practices, social responsibility, and community engagement for the students.Inspired by Meenamba, Amrita University’s campus also launched another sustainability initiative, focused on collecting empty Coffee Day packets from canteens both on and near the Amritapuri campus. This provides essential raw materials for the local women artisans involved in upcycling projects.
A collection system was established in three campus canteens between November 19 and November 26, 2025. Now operational, volunteers maintain a consistent supply of the raw material through weekly collections. These discarded packets are transformed by the artisans into functional, eco-friendly products.
Beyond reducing campus waste, this effort reinforces Amma’s vision and commitment to empowering women through sustainable livelihoods and responsible production.
And aren’t the purses so cute?
Finally, there was one other notable event during the November 15–20, 2025 Women’s Empowerment week. The Amrita Upcycling Project held a two-day hands-on workshop in Amritapuri to teach participants how to convert everyday waste into functional, eco-friendly products. Two tailoring students learned to craft upcycled pouches from materials like broken umbrella fabric and discarded snack packets. The training emphasized waste reduction and responsible resource use, encouraging participants to identify and creatively reuse plastic items from their own homes. This initiative strengthens local women’s sustainable livelihood capacity and fosters environmental awareness. It also expands the Amrita Upcycling movement as a whole.
We are so proud of everyone involved!
If you would like to join the movement and learn how to make your own tote bag out of recycled materials, you can do so here.
Rudraksha seeds from Amritapuri’s rudraksha trees.
I visited Amritapuri for the first time at the start of 2025 and visited the Rudraksha Farm — one of the Amritapuri gardens. These gardens inspired me so much from a Youtube video I saw, around 2020. At Amritapuri, the gardeners practice “Amritaculture”: a unique combination of Amma’s wisdom, permaculture, biodynamics, regenerative practices, and more.
As the Amritaculture instructors are quite active in serving in these gardens, I caught many glimpses of the techniques through their courses on the Amrita Virtual Academy online platform. The garden is a sacred grove, lovingly cultivated, according to Amma’s instructions, by many people over the years. Each volunteer performs seva (selfless service) while at the ashram. In addition to hosting the Amritaculture classes, the garden is home to plenty of Tulasi and other medicinal plants, a family of frogs (personally blessed by Amma), turtles, earthworms, tropical birds—and plenty of other wildlife, too mysterious to be seen at first glance.
The Rudraksha Farm has been a huge inspiration to me. It has been motivating especially since hearing directly from the people who work the land there—such as Lola, Chandrika, and Seetala—through the Amritaculture courses on Amrita Virtual Academy. I’ve also been inspired from reading a little bit about Amma’s vision of sacred groves.
The Tulasi plant is considered holy and has many medicinal properties.
In Amma’s book Eternal Wisdom – Part 2, while talking about Vedic homas and yagnas, Amma says, “If we cannot perform such ceremonies, we should grow plenty of medicinal trees and plants, because they also cleanse the air. Many diseases will be prevented if we breathe the air that has come into contact with medicinal plants”. I read these words while sheltering-in-place during the Covid-19 pandemic. Amma has been very clear that the pandemic is a wake-up call from Nature and an opportunity to make changes to treat Nature properly.
Because I was so personally overwhelmed with the pain and burden from years of improper living, I was keen to find meaningful ways to wake up and change course. I didn’t have any doubt that a tree can embody the Divine Mother’s presence. Before seeing Amma’s photo, or meeting her, I hugged a tree, it hugged me back, and for the first time, I felt a maternal love, free from conditions or expectations. So, attempting to grow a sacred grove of medicinal trees and plants, as an offering to the Divine seemed more than reasonable to me. In this way I could help purify the atmosphere in both my hometown and current residence in Los Angeles.
Applying the Lessons In California At present, the garden I care for here in Southern California is a mixture of plants left by the previous caretakers, vegetables, and a make-shift nursery.
The banyan tree outside one of the buildings in Amritapuri.
I jokingly call my garden “Destruction Farms”. When I wake up early and do my chores with alertness, I have faith that Amma must be slowly destroying my likes and dislikes. When I cling to my likes and dislikes, such as sleeping-in and eating sweets instead of doing chores, I can plainly see how destructive it is for the plants.
Similarly, having a strong attachment to each plant’s wellbeing, I have seen how destructive are the actions of people who are motivated by their desire for name, fame, and position. I have seen plants I love get killed or maimed without remorse, and I have watched my own mind enter into futile states of seeking retribution.
Somehow, the thought of Amma’s consolation, and her words have kept me going. She says that “surrender is not something you do to others”. I can’t fathom the subtler realities of karma and its fruits. However, I have read from Swamini Krishnamrita Prana, in Smiling Within, that “Everything is Divine Will. Whatever comes, no matter how painful, is always for the best. It honestly is”. Furthermore, when Amma chastises the adharmas (harms) against Nature, she has said, “No one is willing to introspect, honestly evaluate themselves and change their behavior. As a result, we are unable to look around us with love for others, or to protect Nature with respect”. To me, this means that unless I can see such people with the same love I have for Amma, I am not fully able to properly protect Nature; I have to keep introspecting and making efforts to change accordingly.
Seva (selfless service) in one of Amritapuri´s gardens.
So, it might still take some time before there is a sacred grove to visit here in Los Angeles, and I still have not managed to grow very many of my own vegetables, like Amma has requested in the past. Nevertheless, I did get a boost of encouragement during Amma’s New Year Message. Amongst her other suggestions, Amma said to “awaken selfless love within you and allow it to express itself daily. Take care of at least one plant”.
In the past, I had used my nursery to grow Tulasi for devotees. Now, along with a few other local GreenFriends members, the nursery has joined an ongoing effort to distribute plants at the local satsangs, so that devotees can follow Amma’s suggestions. So far, in addition to a few more Tulasi, we have distributed fig trees, white guava, white sapote, grape vines, ground cherry, dragon fruit plants, six varieties of ornamental succulents, aloe vera, culinary sage, mint, oregano, three varieties of milkweed, one tropical ash tree, and two peepul trees.
A holy moment with Amma, planting a sapling.
Devotees are regularly admiring the quality of the plants I bring to satsang. I’m certain their admiration is due to the loving care which the Amritaculture instructors demonstrated for me. The devotees lament that such beautiful plants will most likely die in their care. Personally, it doesn’t bother me if I have to keep growing new plants. If we keep growing the selfless love within, allowing it to express daily, there will be plenty of sacred groves to visit in Los Angeles, and elsewhere too.
Om lokah samasta sukhino bhavantu May all beings be happy and peaceful.
——–
A special thank you to Charles for writing such a heartfelt blog. If you would like to learn more about the Amrita Virtual Academy gardening and nature courses, you can do so here.
Want to join our inspiring membership of 108+ courses, retreats, movies and more? Learn more or sign up here.
I was recently blessed to stay six months in Amritapuri, India, and do seva (“selfless service”) for Amrita Virtual Academy. Even though the seva was in an office there, I realized how closely connected we are to Nature in Amritapuri, at all times. There are trees, bushes, plants and birds almost everywhere. Even in the seva office, I could feel the breeze from the sea when the window was open, and, at times, I could see the smallest snake outside the window. (There was a mosquito net covering the window, so we always felt safe 🙂.) The ashram is surrounded by the backwaters and the Arabian sea, which you can see from the higher buildings or when you take a walk.
When you arrive at Amritapuri’s International Office, there are so many flowers and flowering bushes welcoming you, for example: the many bougainvilleas (pictured below). When you go a bit further through the gate, towards the temple (the heart of Amritapuri) the majestic peepal tree, with its heart-shaped leaves and all its birds, greets you, setting the tone of holiness of the place.
Even on the walls, by the Western Café, there are recycled bottles with hanging plants. Also the mango tree there is in full bloom and loaded with ripening mangoes now.
Next to the Indian Canteen, a sacred banyan tree stands grandly. Amma planted this tree in a ceremony during Amritavarsham 50 (the celebration of Amma’s 50th birthday), with water from rivers all over the world. (There is a video on Youtube from the Amritavarshan celebration, here.)
Even sitting in the big hall where Amma’s daily program is often conducted, you are surrounded by Nature. You can hear the wind, the rain, and the birds, as the structure does not have closed walls. These sounds, I find, are conducive for going within and help to give a feeling of connectedness with all of creation. The experience makes me think of this quote from Amma:
There is a rhythm to everything in the cosmos. The wind, the rain, the waves, the flow of our breath and heartbeat—everything has a rhythm. Similarly, there is a rhythm in life. Our thoughts and actions create the rhythm and melody. When the rhythm of our thoughts is lost, it reflects in our actions. This will, in turn, throw off the rhythm of life itself. Today, that is what we are seeing all around us.
-Amma (Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi)
The appreciation for the connectedness to Nature in Amritapuri, made me check into the Gardening and Nature content Amrita Virtual Academy offers. As I write this, summer is in full swing in India, and, of course, the weather is very different here than in more northern countries, like my home country of Sweden. But, gardening is a year-round activity, and it’s great to prepare in advance! And, summer is a great time for the preparation of seed saving. Winter is the time for the planning and planting of seedlings. Both subjects are covered in the AVA courses! There are so many ways to connect with Nature, both by being in nature and by gardening, so I wanted to see what the AVA library offers. As I found that the library is quite vast, I decided to make a compilation of the content, and share it with you, so you can easily check out whatever you feel drawn to!
Amma’s Garden & Message
A very special, intimate, and inspiring clip that I feel is a good start, is the Amma’s Garden & Message, a vlog with Amma. [AVA Members can click here to view it]. You can find it in the Satsang Library, where all the satsangs from Amrita Virtual Academy’s courses and retreats are archived and sorted by topic for easy viewing. This short vlog is one that everyone can enjoy, whether you are into gardening or not, as it gives you some precious moments with Amma.
There is also a sweet video from one of the rooftop gardens in Amritapuri that you can watch on YouTube. Vikasita gives you a relaxing and devotional tour among the plants and vegetables. Since the video is on Youtube, you can watch it whether you have joined the Amrita Virtual Academy membership or not. Watch the Amritapuri Terrace Garden Tour 🍅
Amritaculture – Gardening as a Spiritual Practice
“Amritaculture” is a series of devotional gardening courses taught by a global team of expert gardeners. They offer an in-depth approach to gardening for both beginners and seasoned growers. The courses are especially helpful if you have a place where you can garden, whether it’s outdoors or even indoors, with some pots by the window. Amritaculture can help you to make gardening a spiritual practice; to deepen your connection to Amma, to your own Self, and to all of Creation. It teaches you how to grow your own food, which Amma has stressed for many years as being important. The courses also aim to help you increase your love and devotion to Nature, which we know is very needed in this age, both for our own well-being, and for the well-being of the world.
Something great I found is, if you have any doubts throughout the process of gardening with Amritaculture, there are possibilities to ask questions in the AVA forum, and also a library of recorded Q&A sessions to see how other gardener’s trouble-shooted their gardening season with the AVA instructors.
Amritaculture’s “Grow and Serve” with Green Friends Australia [AVA Members can watch it here] is a special, short and heartfelt program where a family of three from Australia (Kalivati, Ribhu and little Suriya) share how they started a Community Garden project during the Covid-lockdown. They started by creating their own garden. Then, they looked to see if they could help others to do the same. Thus, they ended up helping devotees establish gardens, and from that point, the project grew bigger. Without telling the whole story, they are now serving a wider community along the Sunshine Coast!
Here you can read more about GreenFriends and projects around the globe. Maybe there is a group for you to join in your country, too!
Earth Day Retreat – April 20, 2025
On April 20, there will be a brand new Earth Day Retreat in the AVA Membership. The title of the retreat is “The Five Mothers”. I am very curious what it will be like… Find out more here!
Inside the AVA Membership are also the one-day or two-day long Earth Day Retreats from 2023 and 2024! The retreats are titled, “Nurture Mother Nature” and “You are the Self-effulgent Sun”.
You can do the retreats with the guidance of a suggested schedule, or in a self-paced manner. The retreats offer an opportunity for focused sadhana, coupled with love for Nature. Within each retreat are sessions guided by many competent spiritual seekers, as well as senior swamis/swaminis. The sessions feature yoga, guided meditations, mantra japa, DIY sessions, and also sessions that teach you more about the culture Amma grew up in.
Natural Living: Workshop series
There is also the “Natural Living” workshop series, which includes high-quality DIY episodes, ranging from a workshop taught by French Swamini Amritajyoti Prana, presenting tips on how to use essential oils, to a workshop taught by Meenamba, who has led the great Amrita Upcycling project in Amritapuri since many years. Meenamba teaches how to make practical tote bags from recycled plastics, and much more. Our dear Tanmayi, from Amrita Virtual Academy, shares more about the “Natural Living” series in a blog she wrote while testing an episode. You can read about her experience here.
In the end, what I really enjoyed about the Nature and Garden content, is the mix of spiritual teachings and the practical application through different workshops and sessions that carry Amma’s way and message so well… high spirit, but feet on the ground!
What I want to mention also, is the valuable course about one of the foundations of our life: soil. In “Soul of the Soil”, Seetala and Chandrika teach on growing more organic food with less work by harnessing the power of microbiology. Learn to use current research methods on regenerative agriculture combined with love and respect for Nature’s perfect interplay.
Thanks to Nistula for sharing her inspiring experience with Amrita Virtual Academy.
We encourage you to join the Earth Day Retreat 2025 here. It is going to be a beautiful retreat about The Five Mothers of Ancient India. The retreat is part of the AVA Membership. As an Amrita Virtual Academy member, you have access to more than 80 different courses and retreats in different fields. Discover more about the AVA Membership here. Or sign-up here.
For almost two years I have been doing seva (“selfless service”) for Amrita Virtual Academy. And, since I rarely get to take any of the courses, I honestly got very curious about all that’s in the Amrita Virtual Academy Membership. I love almost all the topics I see, and want to know exactly what I can learn. So, I decided to try out the Membership for 24 hours, have fun, and take you along. You’re invited to join me as I share my weekend adventure with you!
SATURDAY NIGHT
To begin, let me first login, and take another look at the AVA Membership… On the Student Dashboard I see all kinds of courses presented right away. Hmm… What shall I choose? I’ve got to start somewhere. What I’ve been longing to check out are the “Natural Living: Health and Harmony” and “Art of Natural Plant Dyeing” courses, plus the “Amrita Prasadam Indian Cooking” and “Devotional Singing” courses. (I also work as a classical singer, so I am curious to dive more deeply into devotional singing.) Also, I looooove, love, love cooking, so I want to see the amazing recipes and videos of the Indian Cooking classes.
My only activity tonight is to look around the Student Dashboard, and watch some of the content, so I know what to plan for tomorrow. Let’s start with my absolute favorite, Natural Living!!!
Exploring the Wellness Course, “Natural Living: Health and Harmony”
Oooh, a prayer to Amma before the course starts. Love it!
And, the video shows the Ecoshop in Amritapuri! I’m in India now, so I can easily go there. But, I imagine if you are in the West, and you miss the ashram here, then seeing the Ecoshop can literally feel like AVA is bringing Amritapuri into your home.
Oooh, we can learn to make eco-friendly gifts that support nature!
Look, it’s my singing friend in the video! “Hi Tejasvini! You look so cute in your white-and-pink sari!”
Right, we are going to make Mist Sprays with Essential Oils! I have wanted to do that for so long. I don’t have the essential oils at home that she speaks about, but tomorrow I will check which oils I DO have, and then make a home-and-body spray! Yippie!
Okay, next…I would love to cook something this weekend from the Indian Cooking courses.
Oooee, what are these Vegan Bliss Balls in Natural Living?
Wait, what? I seriously have everything in my flat (apartment) to make these balls tomorrow! But you know, since I’m no longer tired, I’m going to start making them right away.
Looking in my kitchen I see I have 90% of the ingredients, and have decided to replace the oatmeal with puffed quinoa. First I mix the dry ingredients, then add the wet ingredients, and make the bliss balls. Wauw, they are delicious! And, so easy to make.
Well, after that, I am still energized, so I’m going to see if I have any essential oils to make the mist spray taught in the course. Hmmm, I don’t have any, except a few final drops. But, what I do have, is a brown, plastic spray bottle I can use for when I do have oils. (You can see a photo of the brown bottle above and a fabric strip of my mum’s embroidered roses pictured in the background.) I’m going to head over to the Ecoshop in the coming days, and check if I can get some affordable oils to make my own spray. We will be going on tour with Amma soon, so I don’t want to spend too much now.
SUNDAY MORNING
Learning Indian Cooking with the “Amrita Prasadam” Courses
There are so many wonderful Amrita Prasadamvideos and recipes to choose from! I decided to make dosas, and check out the recipe for Coconut Chutney. Cool—all the recipe videos are right there on the Cooking page. (I clicked on “Cooking” in the left menu, on the Student Dashboard to bring up the Cooking page. I could also just type “coconut chutney” in the search bar to get there.) And, there is a video with the recipe: “Masala Dosa & Coconut Chutney”. Right, I see this is high-level Indian cooking. This is a great recipe for coconut chutney, but I don’t have everything needed in my little kitchen, so let’s make it with what I have! Yeah! It turned out to be yummy. Thank you, Vaju! <3
The prayer to Amma in the beginning is really awesome. Since we do it before every seva in the ashram, it becomes a regular part of life. Also, it’s beautiful how the focus of the singing course is on connecting more to Amma by singing bhajans. Ooo… I see it’s a course for 8 weeks.
I looked quickly through it and saw videos with all kinds of vocal exercises to learn ragas. (A raga is like a set of rules for building a melody—very similar to the Western concept of a music scale or mode.)
Wauw! I wanna learn this. And you know what’s amazing? You can make a video of yourself, and send it in to the teaching assistant to get feedback on your singing! In the coming weeks I will continue taking this singing course with Ratna. (She’s Brahmachari Ramanandamritaji’s sister!) I have seen the satsang, “The Essence of Music”, with Swami Amritaswarupananda Puri in the past weeks, and it is just gold! A must watch for music lovers.
SUNDAY EVENING
Enjoying The Art of Natural Plant Dyeing
Now, finally I can go into The Art of Natural Plant Dyeing! I was ‘dying’ to dive into this one… Okay, I see now that the course includes 12 hours of videos. So, let’s get started!
This whole course was recorded here in Amritapuri, in the Saraswati house—a place not everybody knows of yet. I was there a while ago, and it felt as if I went into the forest to see the medicine lady (the good witch) of the village to learn about the healing properties of different plants and herbs.
The sevites (volunteers) in the Saraswati house make all kinds of beautiful clothes with fabrics and natural dyes—one of the ultimate feminine and natural spots in Amritapuri.
Ayurvastra is an old ‘craft’ or ‘science’ about the healing art of natural plants in fabric. I learned from the class that it takes far more time to dye fabrics this way than it does to dye fabrics for the clothes we buy in regular shops. But, it is so healing for us, and also for the environment. “Fast fashion” becomes landfill garbage. I would love a sari dyed with Ayurvastra! Also in the Amrita Boutique here in Amritapuri, garments are sold that are made by Padma, who volunteers in the Saraswati house. (You can see her in the photo here, along with our Mindful Movement instructor, Neelima.)
Like Devotional Singing, Art of Natural Plant Dyeing is an 8-week course. I will be watching it in parts in the coming weeks, since I don’t want to overload myself now.
CONCLUSION
I’ve learned it’s especially good if you can join the year-long AVA Membership option, because, dear Goddess, it’s so beautiful, all this content! Soooo much valuable learning, plus arts and crafts…I am so grateful I have found this.
I didn’t even get into the language courses, the retreats, and the gardening courses yet. This is a true treasure chest of knowledge, with amazing spiritual lessons and satsangs everywhere you look! Truly “Learning Values Through the Arts!”
Love, Tanmayi Netherlands
P.S. Hey, that’s me in the AVA Membership… Ooooh It’s from my own little singing course…
In what world does a grassroots environmental initiative like “seedball tossing” involve the in-person participation of the President of India, Smt Droupadi Murmu, thousands of participants, and many other important government leaders, with only a couple days’ notice? In the inspiring world of Civil 20, 2023! This is one event of many in the Global Seedball Campaign, one initiative of Amma’s C20 efforts in Sustainable and Resilient Communities.
The making and distribution of seedballs Putting some seeds in a ball of manure or compost and soil is an ancient technique for reforestation and soil restoration that offers a way for community groups to come together and contribute to restoring our planet’s ecological balance. Seedballs can be thrown into areas needing restoration—or dropped from helicopters or planes!
Under the guidance of Amma, Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, the Chair of Civil 20 during India’s 2023 G20 Presidency, the Working Group for Sustainable & Resilient Communities partnered with AYUDH (the youth wing of Mata Amritanandamayi Math) to launch the C20 Global Seedball Campaign. The goal was to make, and toss, 1 million seedballs worldwide. Globally, volunteers gathered at Embracing the World centers across India, and in Asia, Europe, South America, North America, Australia, and Africa as part of an effort to encourage people to contribute to this goal in whatever way possible. Other organizations, including the Government of Puducherry, private schools and colleges, and even businesses who wished to contribute to their communities, joined in the campaign.
In a way, the global campaign itself is a metaphorical seedball. The idea for the campaign was the seed, and the spread of that idea throughout Embracing the World centers across the world, to other organizations and businesses, is akin to the spread and rooting of that seed.
Seedballs mimic nature by providing protection and fertilizer for the seeds inside. If you’ve ever seeded a garden and watched birds swoop in and eat most of the seeds, you can probably see why the coating around the seeds is protective in more than one way.
On August 7, 2023, President Murmu graced the C20 Global Seedball Campaign, along with many government officials and dignitaries (see partial list below), at the Thirukanchi Temple in Puducherry, India. She inaugurated the Seedball Dispersal initiative by tossing the first seedballs made by Puducherry students, to help with reforestation at the Temple grounds.
The event, originally envisioned as a simple series of workshops and classes for students and members of the NCC (National Cadet Corps), grew like, well, fertile seedballs, into a huge event with 5,000 student participants from Puducherry government and private schools and colleges, as well as volunteers from all over Tamil Nadu. Amrita Virtual Academy also joined in to support the effort. Chandrika Suliman, an educator with the Amritaculture gardening and ecology classes, was an organizer for the event.
With the power of grassroots organization, youthful passion and the hope the project embodies, word spread quickly. Eventually the campaign distributed 500,000 seedballs across vulnerable ecosystems in the area around Puducherry and Tamil Nadu. Other cities, like Coimbatore, Chennai, have since held similar events—the power and passion initiated by the Puducherry event resulted in both vitally needed environmental reforestation and education, while also being a widely noticed example of cooperation and collaboration across many different organizations and levels of government, citizens, and NGOs. The whole world needs such examples of sincere gatherings and outpourings of cooperation and hope.
In addition to President Murmu, the event included esteemed guests such as Dr. (Tmt). Tamilisai Soundararajan, Hon’ble Lt. Governor of Puducherry; Shri Thiru. N. Rangasamy, Chief Minister of Puducherry; Shri Thiru. C. Djeacoumar, Hon’ble Minister for Agriculture and Forest, Puducherry; and Swami Ramakrishnananda Puri, Treasurer, Mata Amritanandamayi Math. Students from government schools, private schools, medical college students, arts college students, NSS and NCC students were among the participants.
For information about the inauguration of the program in Puducherry on July 21, 2023, just two weeks before the event described above, please see the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3qBAaw3PYw
Globally the campaign has taken many forms. For example, at the19th Annual European AYUDH Forum, in August, 2023, Swami Amritaswarupananda Puri led the group in a seedball distribution in which seedballs were made and planted around the German ashram.
See how the Indian Navy has tossed the seedballs from helicopters over degraded forest areas, to show their support for the C20 Global Seedball Campaign:
Every year, humans destroy around 10 million hectares of forests, causing huge ecological imbalance that affects earth’s climate and biodiversity. Deforestation has a profound impact on mankind, wildlife, and other life forms in nature.
As deforestation continues, urgent action is needed to protect the planet’s biodiversity and ensure the survival and wellbeing of countless species on earth.
The Civil 20 working group on Sustainable & Resilient Communities (SRC), under the guidance and vision of Amma as Chair of C20 for India’s G20 Presidency, is deeply honored to launch a ‘Global Seedball Campaign’ that will work towards producing and distributing 1 million seeds of hope in the year 2023.
A seedball is made up of soil and seeds, often mixed with clay and other organic materials to hold the ball together. They are designed to be thrown or scattered in areas where vegetation is desired and rely on natural rainfall to germinate and grow into mature plants. This is an ancient technique used for reforestation and soil restoration. Seedballs offer an environmentally friendly and low-cost solution to a global problem and has the potential to make a significant impact on the health and resilience of our planet’s ecosystems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsCZbprbLr8
Amrita Virtual Academy offers this video tutorial with step-by-step instructions to join in on the challenge. May the spread of seedballs and increased awareness of the importance of trees lead to restoring ecological balance.
Inspired by Meenamba, Amrita University’s campus also launched another sustainability initiative, focused on collecting empty Coffee Day packets from canteens both on and near the Amritapuri campus. This provides essential raw materials for the local women artisans involved in upcycling projects.
