Tanjun Associate: Combating Deforestation through Table Tennis

26. August 2022

Tanjun Associate, one of six recipients of the Dream Building Fund powered by GSD, started the programme by collaborating with two schools in Uttarakhand. The two-year project aims to use table tennis to raise environmental awareness by focusing on early age education on preventing deforestation, plantation activities, and efficient waste management solutions.

The state of Uttarakhand is situated in the northwest of India, crossed by the Himalayas, making the highlands of Uttarakhand covered by snow. The climate is temperate, characterised by seasonal changes, and influenced by tropical monsoons. Floods and landslides are inevitable during the rainy seasons, and forest fires intensify in summer. Climate change and global warming deteriorate these conditions rapidly, causing life in Uttarakhand, where the predominant livelihoods depend on agriculture become more vulnerable. Thus, Tanjun Associate acts in three strategic areas:

children's behavioural change through sport for better health and development of life skills;
providing tangible climate actions and adaptation (i.e., vertical farming);
measurable socio-economic development in low-income rural communities by raising awareness about green jobs and providing skill-based training sessions.

Bamboo Table Tennis Tables

Tanjun Associate began their programme in June 2022 by partnering with The Paradise Academy High School at Budhwa Shaheed village and the Doon Valley Public School in Johri Village. The project enables the Tanjun Associate to introduce table tennis in the Sport Exemplar Centre, a centre built with bamboo wood to promote the use of bamboo and eco-friendly natural materials as alternative housing forms. Interestingly, each school will use bamboo table tennis for the training sessions too! This project aims to contribute to UN SDGs 13: Climate Action, as the development of the Sport Exemplar Centre is intended to be the model for sustainability and experimentation, innovation, and solutions.

Nursery Development

Trained community coaches are the catalysts to disseminate the project activities in the schools and communities. The communities anticipate two exciting activities: rooftop and vertical farming, and bamboo nurseries. The nursery development currently takes place in Tanjun Livelihood Skills Training and Research Centre, containing bamboo, hibiscus, magnolia, and a few other sundry varieties. In so doing, Tanjun Associate provides alternative sustainable farming to marginal farmers who depend on agriculture as a single source of income.

We look forward to more exciting news on the ground and appreciate the opportunity to accompany them on the journey to bring the positive social change their communities need.

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