YEAR OF THE GOAN ENVIRONMENT 2007

Goa Sudharop observes 2007 as the Year of Goan Environment or one may say “Green Goa”.

We believe that the burning issue of our fast degrading environment witnessed the world over can be ignored only at our peril. Environmental scientists forewarn us that the global warming responsible for the climatic changes we experience will worsen and will make life difficult and unsafe in not too distant a future. Catastrophes like tsunami tidal waves, melting of glaciers world over including our Himalayas, rise in sea levels, droughts, heat waves, famines, epidemics, etc. will kill and render homeless millions of people world over, besides devastating billions of dollars worth assets and infrastructure, etc. as well as submerge millions of square kilometers low-lying lands like Bangladesh, Maldives and others! Environmentalists warn us again and again, that this is all due to human neglect, myopia and greed for unbridled material prosperity or “development” destroying in its wake the natural environment. God created this beautiful planet for us to live in peace and happiness, but we humans, like spoilt- children, keep on polluting the air, water, and land without realizing that nature is like our mother unfailingly sustaining us all the time. Mother nature gives us everything and at no cost but we in turn only destroy it instead of living in harmony with it. How sad? And, is it not a sin on our part to do so?

Goa Sudharop views this foreboding scenario of environmental degradation with the gravest concern, and wishes to create awareness at the grassroots level about the dire need to respect and conserve the environment, which is our very life-line. One of the major aspects of this environmental deterioration is the neglect, mismanagement, wastage of, and consequent fast depletion of our water resource so vital for survival of all creation, the very “water of life”. Experts have already warned that water crisis could have serious socio- economic consequences. The idea of Goa Sudharop organizing the Rain Water Harvesting Workshop on 11th September 2007 in Panaji in association with the Botanical Society of Goa (BSG) is one of the several other programmes and activities that are being implemented by Goa Sudharop this year to drive home the all- important message of environmental care and conservation so desperately needed to save and sustain all life. Through this RWH workshop for school teachers, facilitated by a panel of well-known experts in the field, we hope to further augment their knowledge and empower school teachers as much as possible on how and why of rain water harvesting or conservation, so that they in turn instruct and pass on the knowledge to their respective school students who would then be able to help put it to work in their own homes and neighborhoods.

ABOUT GOA SUDHAROP

Goa Sudharop Community Development Inc. U.S.A. is a Goan diaspora, volunteer non- profit NGO working for betterment of Goa and Goans  worldwide. Since its inception, Goa Sudharop has partnered with various NGOs in Goa as Goa Desc, Green Cross, Bailancho Saad, Goa Foundation, Peoples’ Movement for Civic Action and other groups working at Goa’s grass root level. This premier Goa Diaspora organization provides the vehicle that enables all Goans- resident and non- resident to give back to Goa in the form of time, money and skills. Besides organization- based projects Goa Sudharop supports and funds individual who have done outstanding work in Goa through the annual Goa Sudharop Fellowship Awards instituted from the year 2000. These Fellowships not only reflect Goa Sudharop’s continuing commitment to certain key issues.