Why Nandi?
One of the last vestiges of our precious Heritage, Nandi boasts of a rich History, ecology, bio-diversity and water bodies, which is currently fast disappearing. If we wish to save this legacy of Bengaluru, the time to intervene is now.
In such a situation, we need a 360-degree intervention into the village development. United Way of Bengaluru is facilitating this very same process in terms of its own three main projects – Wake the Lake, Integrated Rural Development and Born Learning.
Currently, we have carried out lake rejuvenation, Kalyani restoration, Gunduthopu, roof top rainwater harvesting units, government school refurbishment, organic farming (farm pond), Gokatte creation, plantation, solid waste management and dustbins.
Some of these are native concepts. Kalyani is a traditional rainwater harvesting structure. Gunduthopus are woodlots that nothing but green spaces capable of small-scale production of forest products including wood fuel and serve as points for bird watching. These used to be integral to rural landscapes in the past and nowadays are found less in numbers.
Meanwhile, the new set of interventions are additional to the earlier list which include pottery house refurbishment, student scholarships for the kids of the village, women livelihood support, sanitation, Anganwadi refurbishment and open well rejuvenation.
Apart from the Nandi village, we had covered one more region from the Chikkaballapur district – Sulthanpet. At the Sulthanpet tank, we carried out levelling of the lake bed, cleaning of the feeder canals, building of the lake bund embankment, plantation of saplings across the lake premise etc.
The lake clean up included freeing the lake from toxic non bio-degradable dump, providing the required civil amenities along with continuous maintenance, building of children’s play area, gazebo, toilets, STP and a walk path creation around the lake. The plantation near the lake was also to increase the bio diversity and making of thematic Gardens, butterfly gardens and moolikavana (planting in the shape of human bodies), etc.
We also took part in forming and strengthening the lake welfare associations. Awareness was given to the villagers on lake conservation & water literacy. We had also conducted certain community festivals related to the natural water bodies in the villages such as Kere Deepotsava, Kere Habba and Kere Sankranti. These were done so that the villagers can be intertwined with the welfare of Nature through celebration and happiness.
All these activities were carried out by corporate volunteers from Wells Fargo, UBL, community members who were facilitated by United Way of Bengaluru.