Last week, a new cultural exchange began between the Sadhana Forest community and our surrounding villages.

Adam Le’ Adam is an Israeli based organization working to help further develop relationships between travelers and the communities they visit. A group of 17 volunteers will stay in Sadhana Forest for two weeks focusing on community outreach.  The group is led by Ram Efrat, who has been volunteering at Sadhana for the past month.

Adam Le’ Adam began their work on Sunday with a Yatra to our closest village neighbors in Chinna Pattanur. Over 20 other volunteer also joined, bringing instruments and music to help start the morning. The communication was facilitated by our long term volunteer Veena who speaks fluent Tamil.

Photo by Raja

Photo by Raja

During the Sunday Yatra we invited local village children to the inauguration of Children’s Land in Sadhana Forest and a permaculture course for young people on December 27.  The Adam Le’ Adam group will continue doing intensive village outreach for the duration of their stay, including supporting a local day care center.

In the village we also distributed ‘Small Steps’ bags (reusable cotton bags) generously donated by Upasana Design Studio. For more info you can visit their website at www.smallsteps.in. Approximately 50 families received a ‘Small Steps’ bag and we hope that they will replace a lot of the plastic used daily for shopping and help raise awareness about plastic pollution.

We are very excited about the work the Adam Le’ Adam will do during the coming weeks and we hope to continue it in the future!