When something works well and makes a difference to improve people’s lives, news of it will spread fast via word of mouth. The multiple personal, social and environmental benefits of increased green cover are so swiftly evident, that news of PGH spreads like wildfire. The project was designed to go viral, so there is no way of knowing exactly how many trees have been planted beyond those grown within Isha nurseries, but it could be in the millions.

Size of population: 62 million
Size of state: 130,000 km2 (roughly the same size as the UK)
Average Percentage green cover: 17.5%
Percentage rural people: approx 65%
Percentage malnourished: approx 50% of rural children are malnourished

Underpinning the success of Project GreenHands is an inclusive social strategy designed to touch the heart of everyone that gets involved. By respecting everyone equally, PGH inspires and empowers people to believe that they can make a difference and then shows them how to take direct action to help themselves and their environment.

Project GreenHands offers a strategy that enables people:

• to think big and rise to a shared challenge
• to become educated about all the benefits of trees
• to work together in ways that respects, values and includes everyone equally
• to grow, plant and tend trees to heal their lands and rebuild their relationship with nature
• to rebuild their energy, health and willingness to improve their own lives
• to discover the joy of growing trees, so that words spreads and the project spreads with it

Self Help Groups are usually small groups of village women who come together to help each other, sometimes as micro entrepreneurs saving regular small sums of money to contribute to a common fund that meets their needs in times of emergency.,

Over 8,000 people died when the tsunami struck the coast of Tamil Nadu. Shock was an issue preventing people from rebuilding their lives. Isha offered tree saplings to every family that had lost a loved one, in a simple ceremony that provided a place for families to direct their grief. 25,000 saplings were planted within 3 weeks between 6 villages. The emotional bond that grew between people and their trees was strong and unexpected. Project GreenHands was created to explore the possibility that caring for saplings could rekindle people relationship to the living world and help reverse the environmental degradation of Tamil Nadu.

Project GreenHands has identified over 60 indigenous species of trees that could be planted throughout Tamil Nadu. So far 36 species have been are grown in PGH nurseries, providing fodder and green manure, fruit, flower, medicines, shade, fencing, fuel, oils, timber and materials for small scale forest enterprises.

• 2005: 25,000 seedlings planted in tsunami affected villages
• 2006: World Guinness Record for 852,587 seedlings planted on a single day by 256,289 people
• By end of 2010, 10 million saplings will have been grown in more than 427 nurseries, planted in 1800 rural communities and 3 main industrial cities

Trees cool and increase the moisture content of the air, help reverse desertification by enhancing the drainage into aquifers and reduce soil erosion from wind and flood. The produce from trees reduces financial outgoings by providing resources for the soil, for the livestock and for human use that would otherwise have to be bought.

Free animal fodder, green mulches, manures, wood for fencing and increased shade serve the livestock and improve soil fertility and moisture content while free fruit for the children, medicinal products, oil seeds, fuel products and temple flowers benefit communities.

The development of intensive agriculture requires farmers to borrow money in order to purchase the seeds, fertilizers and pesticide they need to cultivate their land. Each failed harvest due to drought or flood through excessive monsoon is aggravating their debt level. Every year thousands of them lose any hope of getting out the vicious circle and commit suicide.

Much of rural Tamil Nadu relies primarily upon monsoon rains to provide both its drinking and agricultural water, but the monsoons are becoming increasingly unpredictable and turbulent. Rains can be late to arrive causing drought, or extremely intense when they come causing devastating flooding. Erosion of top soil is a massive contributor to agricultural decline, and agricultural debt through lost harvests is a huge burden for farmers whose livelihoods depend upon reliable weather.

PGH is designed to help people to help themselves. The project rolls out at the pace that villagers pick it up so that it follows the energy of interest and willingness rather than imposing itself or trying to convince. PGH is designed to help people recognize that they can perpetuate the benefits of the project them selves, increasingly improving their lands and lives so that there is no dependency upon the organization after the project has been actively adopted within an area.

For PGH to go to scale, replicate and raise its profile fast enough to achieve its goals, significant financial assistance is required. The initiative offers an attractive CSR proposition for social and environmentally minded organizations, covering a rare combination of environmental education and restoration, reforestation, climate change mitigation, community development, social justice, reduction of poverty and childhood malnutrition, biodiversity and water conservation.