All species on earth share only one thing among themselves, and that is the environment. The environment has always been central to human existence throughout history and will continue to be so, hence the need for Environmental Education to sustain the environment is enormous.
The next question that arises is then, How do we confront the challenge of Environmental Education?
Have you ever thought about why a subject like Environmental Education is taught inside the four walls of a classroom? Or why are we made to learn about our environment and surroundings chiefly from textbooks? If yes, you have come to the right page!
We believe that Environmental Education is a subject whose domain goes way beyond the purview of classrooms and textbooks. Our daily interactions with our surroundings, day to day activities, and even mundane work and household chores are inextricably associated with environmental education that no textbook can illuminate.
Environmental Education, is then, a subject which we can learn through our experiences and daily interactions with our surroundings. Further, it would be erroneous to study environmental education in isolation. What we mean by this is that Environmental Education has strong linkages with other areas of study, such as linkages with livelihoods, development and social justice.
To tackle all the challenges and questions mentioned above, we bring you Harit Education!
Harit Education is an Environmental Education campaign that has come into existence with the association of HCL and World Comics India. Harit Education aims to educate people on grave environmental issues and challenges that pose a threat to our local ecosystems and also the global environment. Harit Education draws environmental education out of the four walls of classrooms and associates it with our everyday interactions and experiences with our surroundings. It also uses the participatory methodology of Grassroot Comics that enables the masses to learn and share their understanding of various issues in a fun and entertaining way.
You must be curious by now as to what Grassroot Comics is!
Grassroot Comics is an alternate medium of communication and pedagogy that sets itself apart from both, mainstream comics and mainstream pedagogy. It is a dynamic communication cum pedagogical tool that teaches the masses the technique of making comics on several issues and their life experiences. Grassroot Comics go well beyond fiction and mythology which is often found in mainstream comics to comics on real-life issues and experiences of people in general. Grassroots Comics gets rid of intellectual and artistic elitism, providing a communication cum pedagogical tool for the general masses through which they can learn and express everything!
Through grassroots comics, Harit Education aspires to educate you about the environment and environmental issues that go beyond textbooks and encourages you to express your understanding, learning, and experiences regarding the environment and environmental education.
About HCL Foundation
HCL Technologies implements its Corporate Social Responsibility agenda through its CSR arm, the HCL Foundation. Various flagship programmes and initiatives of the Foundation, endeavour to contribute towards national and international development goals, bringing about lasting positive impact on people and the planet, through long term sustainable programmes with a thematic focus on Education, Health & Sanitation, Skill Development & Livelihood, Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction & Response. Child protective strategies, inclusion and gender transformative approaches remain central in all initiatives of the HCL Foundation, thus ensuring equitable development and opportunities for all.
Our vision is to be the source code for sustainable socio-economic and environmental development through nurturing clean, green and healthy communities where everyone is empowered and equipped to reach their full potential in partnership with its employees, communities and stakeholders while promoting volunteerism and establishing international standards of strategic planning, implementation and measuring impact.
Keeping our core values of innovation, transparency, accountability, and impact in mind, we invest in people, the planet, partnerships, prosperity and peace agenda to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) & National Missions while contributing to the goal of nation-building.
About HCL Harit
HCL Foundation launched HCL Harit – The Green Initiative (earlier incubated under HCL Uday – A holistic urban CSR initiative addressing all forms of urban poverty) as a distinct flagship programme for Environment Action; with the vision ‘to conserve, restore and enhance indigenous environmental systems and respond to climate change in a sustainable manner through community engagement’. Throughout the process, HCL Harit ensures building scalable and replicable models that are economically viable, socially acceptable, environmentally sustainable, holistic and inclusive. All the interventions follow the ‘Participatory and Convergent Approach’ in attaining the desired results toward UN SDG goals aligned to the National Indicator Framework for SDG.
HCL Harit focuses on a variety of environmental issues such as the need for increasing green cover, carbon sequestration, native biodiversity through afforestation and habitat improvement, conservation and rejuvenation of water bodies through community engagement, reduction in CO2 emissions, improvement of Coastal and Marine Habitats for native biodiversity, improving lives of stray animals and addressing human-animal conflict inside community areas, enhancing environmental awareness among communities through environmental education with the help of innovative tools and techniques.