About « One Earth Foundation

One Earth Foundation is a non-profit environmental and community service trust focused on creating and enhancing environmental awareness and positively impacting the lives of indigenous communities through various initiatives. Supported by several organizations and volunteers, our efforts and initiatives are largely based in the ecologically & culturally sensitive Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve, the Dhauladhar ranges in the lower Himalayas and the eastern region of Goa where we engage, involve and interact with village children, tribes & local communities and special needs groups.

Our work is underpinned by the core guiding principles

Conservation of the natural and cultural wealth and heritage of Nilgiris
Engage and involve indigenous communities in our efforts
Efforts should positively impact local communities and change lives.
Teach, inspire and empower young minds to equip and enable them to be the future custodians of our fragile planet

For additional Information, please contact
Raminder Chowdhary
oneearthfdn@gmail.com
+91-9008000338

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Our core initiatives are:

Reaching out to over 15 panchayat and village schools in the Nilgiris and working with them in areas like environment, conservation and health.
Reaching out to tribal and indigenous communities with various welfare and livelihood related initiatives.
Fostering environmental stewardship at the village level

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Our community action and social service efforts are conducted under the banner of Umeed – an initiative to reach out to the marginalized communities, families and children enabling them to live a life of dignity and hope. Our cor activities are as follows

Our Childrens home: Nurturing and caring for orphan and destitute children

Educare: Supporting the educational needs of marginalized family children and helping remote hill region schools

Clean Water & Health for all: Providing clean water to remote tribal and indigenous communities.

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In an effort to connect urban students with the natural and cultural wealth of India, we organize customized outbound educational field trips. IB, IG and CBSE Students from leading educational institutions from India and overseas visit us to participate in our challenging and inspiring field excursions. Our trips are customized to meet IGCSE, MYP, IB and A Level syllabus’ in subjects like of Biology, Geography, Environmental Systems and Societies and Environmental Science, CAS and more.

Envirotrips aims not only to further students knowledge and understanding of their coursework topics, but also nurture long term mindset of environmental and ecological stewardship, an appreciation of the culture and heritage of the region and a commitment to social cause. The destinations of field excursions is handpicked and would reflect the immense natural wealth and rich cultural heritage of our country.

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India is home to the World’s largest tribal population. Over 100 Mil people from over 645 tribes are rich in culture, heritage and traditional wisdom. The traditional wisdom vested in these communities is a record of human achievement in comprehending the complexities of life and survival in often unfriendly environments. Traditional knowledge, which may be technical, social, organizational or cultural, was obtained as part of the great human experiment of survival and development. Rampant and often unplanned economic development and livelihood challenges are adversely impacting tribal and indigenous communities. Across the World, most ancient wisdom is being lost forever or has already been lost. There is an urgent need to create awareness about this knowledge, its relevance in today’s world and reviving dying practices. One earth Foundation has 2 key projects that aim to preserve and protect traditional wisdom.

Kurumbas Art Revival Initiative

The Kurumbas Art Revival Initiative by One Earth Foundation aims to create awareness, promote learning, and provide livelihood opportunities for existing and upcoming artists of the unique painting style practiced by the primitive tribal group of Kurumbas: residents on the steep slopes of the Nilgiris in South India.

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India has the World’s largest tribal population. The traditional wisdom vested in these communities with the population of over 100 Mil., is a record of human achievement in comprehending the complexities of life and survival in often unfriendly environments. Ethno-botany and ethno-medicine are two areas where our tribal and indigenous communities made tremendous advances over the past few thousand years. Almost every tribe developed its own treatments and cures for ailments of the body and mind, using products from their immediate environment. The Nilgiris is home to 6 Primitive Tribal Groups (PTG) with each having a rich heritage of traditional health care practices and knowledge of medicinal plants and their uses. This gradually accumulated practical and systematic medicinal knowledge is rapidly disappearing and there is an urgent need to create awareness about its significance and relevance. One Earth Foundation aims to:

To protect & preserve traditional medicinal knowledge systems.
To set up an ethno-botanical nursery growing key medicinal plants and herbs.
To document existing ethno-botanical and ethno-medicinal knowledge of the PTG’s of Nilgiris region
To prepare medicines for free distribution to local communities
Conduct workshops and seminars across the region to create awareness about the rich heritage of our traditional health care practices.

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For further information about our work and Initiatives and how you can support these, please contact

Raminder Chowdhary
oneearthfdn@gmail.com
+91-9008000338