From Bill Clinton to Wall-E

      We live in the era of 24/7 news, blogs, twitter and a barrage of media in print. All these pour the noise of the world into our mind. But sometimes if you make connections among different sectors, it can lead to something creative. With this in mind, let me take you on a journey that connects the dots from Bill Clinton to Wall-E and led to the germination of an idea, to give back to the world.

FROM BILL CLINTON TO WALL-E

      In my search of a way to give back to the world, I read and blogged about President Clinton’s book titled ‘ Giving ‘. In it he has cited many great and simple examples of how ordinary people have created miracles to bring about positive changes in the world. One example that stood out was about a hair dresser in a small town. After giving a hair cut to a customer she would collect the hair from the floor and recycle it into a wig. Then she would donate the wig to a cancer patient who had lost hair after intensive chemotherapy.

      This summer an article appeared in New York Times by Nicholsas D. Kristof,  about how the younger generation is loosing touch with nature. Here are the pertinent points from the same:

• … for most of us in the industrialized world, nature is a rarer and rarer part of our lives.
• … in a thoughtful book by Richard Louv, “Last Child in the Woods,” that argued that baby boomers “may constitute the last generation of Americans to share an intimate, familial attachment to the land and water.”
•  Only 2 percent of American households now live on farms, compared with 40 percent in 1900. Suburban childhood that once meant catching snakes in fields now means sanitized video play dates scheduled a week in advance.
•  A British study found that children could more easily identify Japanese cartoon characters like Pikachu, Metapod and Wigglytuff than they could native animals and plants, like otter, oak and beetle.
•  Mr. Louv calls this “nature deficit disorder,” and he links it to increases in depression, obesity and attention deficit disorder.
•  Let’s acknowledge that getting kids awed by nature is as important as getting them reading.

      There was another article about a community garden in the inner city. When the local kids were shown an eggplant bush, one of them asked ” Does it grow eggs?” These are the same kids who think that the source of milk is a grocery store, cow is not in their picture.

      In a recent interview of the first couple by Time magazine ( September 21, 2009) , they shed much light on the importance of volunteering. America is going through a recession and the first lady says, ” I think these are challenging times … now is the time to get involved in your church. Now is the time to go to your kid’s school and participate. …There are so many ways within your own community that you can get involved and you can add value to your own self-interest.”

      President Obama says, ” We’ve always had a strong tradition of individualism…and self-reliance, and that’s one of the most special, precious things about America. But you’ve also had a running thread of community… voluntary associations and organizations. And that’s been just as important in creating the bonds of trust and the community infrastructure that means kids are growing up healthy.”

      Recently I saw the movie titled ‘ Wall - E ‘. Here is its synopsis. To me it was horrifying to see the earth without any greenery, in this movie. To top it all there was a robot making TMUs (Trash masonry units) to construct skyscrapers with. The human race had abandoned the earth and moved to a space station where they just sat all day and looked like pneumatic, obese dolls.

      The gist being, Bill Clinton says give. Nicholas Kristof says get in touch with nature. The Obamas say volunteer in your community while maintaining your individuality. Wall-E exposes the horrors of a non-green and life-less earth. And here I am blogging about mostly nature in this blog

      As I connect the dots between all these issues, it occured to me that this blog can be used as a means to give back to the world. So nature packages have been created for teachers (of elementary schools) who can share them with their students. All that they have to do is view them on smart boards and computer monitors. With the blog’s  global reach, it would be like volunteering for schools all over the world!  The objectives of these nature packages are as follows:

• To make children awed by nature.
• To inculcate a love of nature in them.
• To make them aware about nature’s constantly changing and refreshing qualities.
• To help cure nature-deficit disoder.
• To create an urge in children to go out and explore nature.
• To expose them to nature-based art.

      The listing for these nature packages is in a page titled ‘Nature Packages for Teachers’, on the bottom left corner of this blog’s screen. This is what it looks like. It contains many of the existing posts from this blog and will get more additions as time progresses. So if you are a teacher, a parent, a child or even an adult (with no nature in life), please feel free to view and read them. Also spread the word about them as it is a free service.

      As I wrap up this post, you too can connect the dots from Clinton to Wall-E  and create your own way of giving back to the world.

 Ratna

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