CB BureauOn 5 June, World Environment Day was celebrated with the theme as ‘biodiversity’ and the slogan ‘Time for Nature’ by HCL Foundation, the CSR arm of HCL Technologies. As part of this, it organised a series of virtual workshops and sessions through which environmentalists and conservationists shared their learnings through various sustainable activities, with the objective of encouraging individuals to live in harmony with nature.
According to the foundation, the 2020 theme highlights the role of nature in providing the essential infrastructure and services that support life on Earth and human development. The e-workshops were conducted under ‘Harit – the Green Spaces Initiative’.
Overall there were three workshops and one discussion session. The first workshop was on story writing through comics to engage participants in environment-focused stories. The second workshop was on upcycling which taught participants how to make bin liners with old newspapers and replace the usage of plastic bags in dustbins, helping change their approach towards waste. This was followed by a third workshop which demonstrated how to build a bird nest from readily available resources at home. In the evening, there was a discussion session with Dr Rajendra Singh, the Waterman of India, which gave the audience insights into his work on environment and water conservation.
The WED events were publicised through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. As per the foundation’s spokesperson, the events had organic participation by about 6,709 people through its official Zoom and Facebook accounts. The foundation also reached out to HCL volunteers and sent emailers to NGO networks.
CauseBecause was further informed by the HCL Foundation spokesperson that for all projects that are part of Harit – The Green Spaces Initiative, there is a weekly monitoring system wherein each partner sends a weekly report on their work progress with pictorial evidence, which is assessed against their quarterly targets. The foundation also conducts on-site monitoring of the project activities. Apart from that, every partner submits quarterly progress reports at the end of every quarter.