The war on waste

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Vimlendu Jha is the founder and head of Swechha -- We For Change Foundation which is based in India's capital, New Delhi.

Swechha started out as an organization to combat the pollution of the city's main waterway, the river Yamuna. Today it deals with the environmental issues that affect several aspects of Delhi.

Vimlendu leads volunteers and local children to key sites around the city to tackle the ecological problems, as well as to raise awareness of the issues. Follow his efforts in his blogs and video diaries.

October 11, 2007
War is not necessarily only about guns, bombs and boundaries. And peace is not just about "NO WAR!"

The way I look at war is it's a state of a society, and therefore of an individual placed in that society -- where there is fear of death, anxiety of loss, a chance of defeat. And therefore there are many situations of war.

Peace and environment have a very strong relationship.

On September 24, Swechha, along with another civil society group, Kriti, organized a day-long workshop on peace and environment. It brought together a range of people to express their beliefs and ideas on peace in general, and environmental peace in particular.

As we all know, peace doesn't exist in a void. Sometimes it prevails after conflict, and on many occasions it is supposed to exist without conflict.

In the environmental context we live in, our basic right and ability to survive is threatened by various ecological damages. Environmental degradation, most of the time, is the result of long-term neglect, rather than the result of an accident or one-time event. We realize it only after the damage is done, and we are left to face the consequences.

On September 24, we celebrated International Peace Day. We organized a workshop where high school students were educated about the war-like situation due to ecological damage (to the environment), and how each of us is responsible for the "war."

Waste is one of the most visible, yet invisible, aspects of human civilization. Through the film "Wasted", followed by a workshop on making bags out of waste, students were made aware of the rising threat to our environment due to waste.

Afterwards, we had a street play by the students of Delhi University on various aspects of war and peace -- environment, communalism, racism, etc.

The evening brought together a group of artists from Shadipur Depot, who hummed the songs of peace, of love and togetherness. The day was attended by various artists, youth from various walks of life, children from the slums, officials from the government and many more.

The idea was to think of peace without war -- to be with peace so that we are not shattered into pieces. E-mail to a friend