Abel Foundation

2009-04-12T00:44:00.000-07:00

SUMMER CAMP’09

This Summer develop the hidden abilities in your children by offering them fun, discovery, creativity, knowledge and let them explore their artistic talent through enjoyable and structured program comprising of Art and Crafts, Games, Cooking, Eco friendly Activities..

An opportunity to explore their imagination, create works of art, broaden their horizons and make new friends!!!

Enroll your kids for this 6 day funfilled getaway…..

Date- 1st -6th May 2009*
Time- 2pm- 6 pm
Venue- Unnat Nagar Hall, Opp Unnat Nagar Ground, S.V. Road,Goregaon (W),Mumbai-62.

Contact Us@- abelfoundation.mumbai@gmail.com

For Enquiry @

Prachi-9820860818
Punit- 9892850802

*( All the materials for the camp will be provided by us)
____________________________________________________________________ The Schedule

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The Program Details

T-Shirt Painting- Kids will learn to paint their own T-shirts, explore unique styles of painting and squishing fingers and hands through the paint.

Puppet Making- This workshop introduces students to wonderful world of puppet making, help them explore their imagination, creativity and to create a work of art that speaks for itself.

Treasure Hunt- An exciting activity for kids, to navigate through maps, unravel clues and seek the treasure. A group game to encourage team play and help build a greater interpersonal rapport.

Paper Bag Making- - Say no to “Plastic”, Switch to Paper, kids learn to make bags out of newspapers.

Bookmark Making- Kids learn to make their very own Bookmarks, a great way to show off their artistic side and add personality to their next reading experience..

Pet Plant- Well ever heard of adopting a plant as pet, here’s a chance to have your very own plant, pot it, name it, nurture it….
(Demonstration- How to do Composting)

Corrugated Furniture- One more step closer to eco-friendly living, kids learn to make furniture out of corrugated paper.. Isn’t that cool !!!

Cloth Bag Painting- Here kids get to design their very own signature Cloth bag and flaunt it with pride….

Paper Making- “Recycle” is the Mantra, kids learn the unique technique of making Paper.

Be a Chef- Learn to cook without using any fuel, Save on your carbon footprint, We teach you how….
At the end of every class, students devour their culinary creations!
(Demonstration- Solar cooker-its uses and advantages)

Green Your House- Be an Eco-Superhero yourself, by learning the Four R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle & Responsibility.

Cultural Fiesta- We provide kids a platform to, showcase their natural talent. Be it, arts & crafts, dance, drama, story telling, singing etc..

Exhibition- An exhibit displaying your kids work of art, fostered during the Summer Camp!!!

Felicitation Ceremony -This will mark the conclusion of the Summer Camp 2009.

2009-03-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

Youth Summit '08

The Youth Summit for “Climate Change and Future Sustainability” was a conglomeration of youth coming from different parts of world of different age groups, from different genre for a cause they all believe in and wish to work together.

Many times, we, come across many unpleasant and unjust things which get us thinking wish we could do something about it. Some just crib about the fact that a person cannot change the whole world, while a few actually dare to differ and think about initiating processes that can actually make a difference… even an iota of it.

The Youth Summit'08 was driven by such motivated youngsters who believed that when the Youth unites even mountains can be moved.The students from Finland, Netherlands and India came together; it was a co-existence beyond cultural and religious differences....

"Youth Summit" is a meeting of the youth; it is where youngsters get together and discuss issues that concern us all. In this case, the focus was on Climate Change and Future Sustainability. – aptly described by one of the participant.

They gave a united consensus on issue of Climate Change.Well there are critics who says : Climate change is hogwash, what can a man do about it? He is just an ant in the world population. Besides, climate change is a natural process.
It is something that has to happen so let it be.

We beg to differ…

At the Youth Summit we tried to inculcate the students to form their own opinions about Climate Change by providing them with a platform to explore a series of topics like: Water utilization and conservationWaste Management,Awareness about Climate Change (Health and Education),Impact of human activities on Environment.Alternate sources of Energy.

These group projects that involved students to seek out answers to climate change related questions for themselves. Along with this we planned on nature trails, farming, interviewing villagers, presentations etc which gave participants practical and hands on experience.

The schedule made sure that a stretch of one week, fully utilized their energy and minds in learning things which are not taught in confined spaces.
We believed in initiating the process….

There are many people in the world who are not exactly aware about the change going on, on the mother earth. Yes, we do believe in global warming but even apart from global warming there are many other changes that are gradually being noticed in the environment.

Climate Change is the term being used for the unnatural changes that are gradually being noticed in the environment.In that sense, then one can relate everything in the environment to climate change. Isn't it?

Cause every negative anthropogenic activity indirectly or directly affects the climate.Aiming to completely wipe out every negative anthropogenic activity is far-fetched and unpractical.Instead we aim to create awareness to modify lifestyles voluntarily thereby aiming at reduction of carbon footprint to some extent and awaken humans to live eco-friendly lives.

One of the drawback of Environment Education today is that you can never know how much deeper the message has been imbibed in the students unless you have been manually keeping track of them on a friendly basis. But, then that should not be a deterrent factor.
Someone has to do it and so why not us.

Youth Summit’08 was our second initiative and an opportunity to reach the masses in terms of delivering something which forms the basis of this organization. The youth of today can either choose to forget or instead choose to move on and continue to bring a change….

We at ABEL wish continue to bring a change…. to create and implement programs of various magnitude and genre…through which we hope to create gradual impact in people and that too voluntarily.

We wish to "Be the change to See the change."

2009-03-10T13:48:00.000-07:00

ABEL Panchganised........

We at ABEL wish to do things thought to be impossible and unexpected...

One such thing was our visit to Panchgani’s St Peters school.Our schedule tightly programmed for 3 days stay, to work for a cause of creating awareness among students about the issue of Climate change and a constructive step of organizingYouth summit about it.

We were truly mesmerized by the beauty of Panchgani the moment we stepped out of bus, on a shivering Sunday morning.With lot of apprehension about visiting the school and more so about meeting the person responsible for bringing us here Peter sir.But the grace of welcome seemed to be perfected by everything.

The sprawl of St Peters was magnanimous something which lacks in city schools, and even more so was the Lawrence villa where we were to stay. No sooner we did we unpacked ourselves in the villa, off we were to the school for list of things slotted for us that day.
Our apprehension was now turned to eagerness……

First day's check list bore visits to-

1) The Spandan Eco-Foundation- It’s an Eco-park in heart of a 500 acre forest sprawl of panchgani and mahabelshwar..

We saw the effort that went into making all the plantations, setting up cottages (huts), rain water harvesting plant and these efforts were not only by people working for the foundation but also by students of St.Peters. Well that surely was remarkable aspect, something that is totally amiss in city life.

2) Lingmala Falls

The waterfall at Lingmala was another of such overwhelming experience. It won't describe it, for words cannot do justice to a sight so beautiful. It is like this with Nature, sometimes you cant say why you love it… there seems no real logical reason… perhaps it is the sheer majesty, the force, the might, that you can see in even the simplest of Nature's happenings. It is humbling and inspiring at the same time.

3) Old Mahabaleshwar Table land

The visit to table land was captivating experience(walking in mist, is not everyday experience).A written description to which would not aesthetically justify the being of such terrific beauties…4) Bramha-Rishi CavesWell since the downpour was lashing, literally hitting we managed only one cave, but the strides in knee deep water, in such extreme climatic conditions was one hell of an experience.

But yes, nature does want to test you as it wouldn't want to give away its beauty to every eye!

For us it was day of acknowledging nature’s granditude and our gratitude towards it.The second day was jammed pack session, seconds ran.. And we ran with them, which included….

1) School AssemblyIt started off with routine prayer and song “All things bright and beautiful” couldn’t think of better choice of song for that day.

The “Abel Foundation” was introduced to whole school, wherein each member had tete a tete with teachers and students.

2) Presentations /Interactive sessionsRest of the day was assigned for making presentations and conducting interactive sessions with all students of St Peters. The essence of presentation was creating awareness amongst school kids about climate change and environment, with such an intelligent and receptive crowd we were more than contented…

We not only had 8 non-stop presentations and 4 interactive sessions, but we truly got a glimpse of the kind of love and passion each student had towards nature, through their short write-ups (now locked with us as their memorabilia)

3) MeetingSqueezing some time from hectic schedule, we had meeting with the Head master Mr. Desmond De Monte, Mr. Peter Patrao and Teachers of St. Peters to allocate 2 teachers to co-ordinate in Youth Summit.
The meet was successful in deciding on Ms. Ingrid Fernandes and Ms. Reetu Ganguly as the representatives for Youth Summit.

The day ended with us cheering our new found friends the students of class 6-7th for their football match.

After that a sumptuous dinner and droopy eyes, off we were to our moonlighted paradise (the Lawrence villa).

The extended third day was filled with lot more work, more presentations, more interactions, more running but more smiles too….

1) Meeting-We had yet another meeting now with St. Peters teachers representative for YS and Peter sir, a brainstorming session on objectives and roles for Youth Summit.

2) Interview Session-At days end with just 1 hour left for our departure, students of St Peters were resolute on interviewing us the “Abel Foundation” for their magazineThey managed to toss some challenging and tricky questions but they were excellently volleyed by Ruchi and Hemanth

Somehow in all the chaos we got to interact

informally with students,innumerable personalities, multi-talents, varied view points, yet innate oneness! It was a Blissful mosaic!

It was time for us to bid adieu, but with anticipation of returning back again with more hopes, more dreams…

We were filled up to the brink, with more life, more enthusiasm; more hopes more friends and even more smiles............................ [:)]

2009-03-10T13:46:00.000-07:00

Spread the Word...................

After almost months of preparation and infinite meets later the day was 08/08/08.

Well,people can call it inauspicious or the opposite, but for us it was…… Our first ever Step… Our first ever Endeavor …Our first Presentation on “Climate Change”......

It was a cloudy day, complete with heavy showers but our objective remained unclouded. Making people (students) aware about issue of climate change and how can we deal with it as individuals, in our day to day lives.

The gracious hosts to welcome us were “Bombay Veterinary College”.We were the guest lecturer for one of their nature club activities.The members of nature were very co-operative and pleasant and it seemed they were hoping this workshop to be more than just informative.

With nervousness clinging about how it all was to happen, how audience will react, well for starters the audio output support was not available(so the apparent starting impact was lil jaded)…

In spite of that it was awesomely executed by Ruchi(full marks for it yar)….

The appreciation of which was given as memento by the college (totally unexpected)… All in all it was a great start, a great push which we needed for long time now…….

For us the day was the beginning of something for which we wanted to reach out to everyone…

We not only succeeded in doing that but made friends and met long lost friends too (small world indeed, but big enough to reach out too…..)

2009-03-10T13:41:00.000-07:00

Broadening Horizon....................

ABEL Foundation will be assisting Spandan Eco Foundation in organizing an International Youth Summit on “Climate Change and Sustainability”

This Youth Summit aims at harnessing and harvesting ideas from the community of soon to be young adults - ideas that are capable of being shaped into concrete policy actions that secure the biosphere. Students from India (Mumbai, Goa), Finland and Netherlands will be participating in Youth Summit, collaborating efforts to see a secured biosphere.

The meet will encourage youngsters to transcend individual differences in cultures, beliefs and practices, and to develop a broader, united worldview of the climate change scenario.
Participants would fetch the messages of declaration to their homeland.

ABEL Foundation Team will be handling research proposals on Bio-diversity in and around Spandan, in conjunction with European delegates and will also be documenting Spandan specific flora / fauna / Indian & Global ecological issues and coordinating protocol issues between SEF & BNHS. Abel Team will adopt a grassroot, "bottom - up" approach to secure viable & sustainable Institutional partnerships / cooperation.

ABEL Foundation believes in “Being the Change” by organizing a programme for youth summit encompassing the objectives and the essence of this convention and hopes to “See the Change” brought about through this Youth Summit.

2008-07-28T10:28:00.000-07:00

ABOUT US

The Idea

“ABEL FOUNDATION” is a thought much more than an organization.

Abel has taken up the initiative of creating awareness about the issue of climate change and to sensitize people about the effects our choices have on the environment.

The goal is not simply creating awareness, but to follow it up with focused attention and action.

The Ideology

The Abel Foundation is formed by a group of college students in Mumbai with a passion to make a change in society.

Though interested in dealing with a wide variety of issues, our major area of work has been Climate Change……….

We plan to make citizen groups aware of the problem and bring about changes by having eco-friendly lifestyles, reducing consumerism, initiating and supporting conservation activities.

And we plan to spread the thought through our interactions.

The Initiative

We plan to interact with the mass through our presentations and various other activities.

Through our presentations, we wish to change the way these choices are made and to create a revolution that is based on individual opinion, rather than by forced governmental action.

This is at present being done by organizing presentations in schools and colleges and motivating children and youth to make changes and initiate local level action.

The Vision

“BE the change to SEE the change”

Abel wishes to create a student’s movement about our pressing social and environmental concerns.

We deal very closely with personal choices that we, as individuals, make, and the way these choices affect the lives of all humans, and all other life-forms as well, threatening our very existence on the planet.

To achieve this monumental goal, we have focused on youngsters, who will go on to become policy-makers in the future.