Green Help

Bighelp's mission statement encompasses helping underprivileged children in India to step in the march towards change, self reliance by providing basic and formal education, thereby raising economic productivity, promoting sound management of environmental resources and reducing poverty.

One is struck by some key themes that appear in the statement: Awareness, inspiration, change, action, making a difference, gaining a meaning and purpose to one's life, realizing full potential of a human being. All these themes distill into two core concepts: Self Development and Social Responsibility. These are essential for all children whether they are growing up in the poorest areas of India or are leading cushioned lives elsewhere.

Youth Group at Bighelp holds these values close to their hearts and the forty-strong team came up with the GreenHelp idea in December 2010. GreenHelp is a budding branch of Youth Group with the mighty vision of doing their part for a greener Earth.

The core mission of GreenHelp is to: Reduce, Reuse & Recycle

The team's tasks will not be restricted to any single event, but will continue year-long in their local communities raising awareness, inspiring individuals, bringing about change, and making a difference to the environment.

GreenHelp's 40 youth members embarked on this life-long commitment by taking the following oath on January 8th 2011 during Bighelp's 8th annual fundraising event at Boston, MA, USA:

I solemnly pledge, upon my honor that:
I will value all natural resources
I will do my level best to protect them
I will be judicious in using them and avoid wasting them
I will reduce usage of resources like water, electricity, paper, gas etc
I will reuse materials as much as I can
I will recycle material to the best of my abilities
I will begin undertaking this responsibility earnestly from today with the help of my family and friends

Youth Group members Meghana Tallam, Neha Potturu, Jahnavi Rudrakshala, and Deepti Kamma made up the core GreenHelp team this year and took their first tentative step in their mission on January 8th. They set up 2 recycle bins with the objective of recycling as many used water bottles and soda cans as they can. The team proudly presents the following facts:

• Prevented 355 water bottles from dispensed as trash. All of them were recycled.
• Prevented 75 soda cans from being dispensed as trash. All of them were recycled.
• Although fund raising is not an objective for GreenHelp, a happy outcome of recycling soda cans was that the team raised $3.55. This translates to being able to support a kid through Bighelp for more than 10 days! Not a small achievement for a group of middle school kids.

GreenHelp team needs a pat on their backs and assurance that they are not alone in their mission. Please wish them well and offer them your unwavering support.