Awareness Event 2020
INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES 2020
The 9th of August every year is celebrated as the International day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. There are an estimated 370-500 million indigenous people in the world, spread across 90 countries. They live in all geographic regions and represent 5,000 different cultures. The theme for 2020 was “COVID-19 and indigenous peoples’ resilience”. Innovative ways through which indigenous peoples continue demonstrating resilience and strength in the face of the pandemic, while confronting grave threats to their survival were discussed.
These communities thrive by living in harmony with their surroundings. Research shows that where indigenous groups have control of the land, forests and biodiversity flourishes. To recognise the importance of these communities, PARAS celebrated this day with tribals across several districts of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Indigenous peoples can teach us a lot about preserving natural resources, producing food in sustainable ways and living in harmony with nature.
CELEBRATING INTERNATIONAL YOGA DAY,2020
The 6th annual International Yoga Day was celebrated on the 21st of June 2020. The theme of this year was ‘Yoga at Home and Yoga with Family' owning to the COVID-19 lockdown. The day was celebrated across PARAS INDIA’s regional centres following the norms of social distancing. Community members including kids, youth and women participated in the event. They practised various asanas, pranayama and other practices during the morning hours. The community workers explained the importance that practising yoga can play in one’s life. That our breath is a powerful tool to sync our mind, body and soul.
The day is celebrated to spread awareness about the benefits of yoga and its various practices. The aim is to keep alive the age old practice of yoga and spread it to the world. Also, during yoga day is celebrated to show the love and respect for nature as it is an integral part of the spiritualism. It is a day we also treat nature’s bounties and make it sacred because that is our invaluable gift from ancient tradition.
WORLD DAY AGAINST CHILD LABOUR
“Childhood is the age of learning, not earning”.
PARAS INDIA celebrated World Day Against Child Labour on 12th June 2020 at Community centres of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. It was launched in 2002 by the International Labour Organization to raise awareness of child labour and focus on ways to eliminate it. This year's theme focuses on the impact of the crisis of COVID-19 on child-labour. The harmful effects of this pandemic will not be distributed equally. They are expected to be most damaging the poorest neighbourhoods and for those in already disadvantaged or vulnerable situations, such as children in child labour and victims of forced labour and human trafficking, particularly women and girls. There is an urgent need to protect children from under-age labour, especially in the world of Covid-19. During the celebration, we organized activities such as drawing competition, slogan, essay writing and awareness campaign.
Target 8.7 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals calls for an end to child labour in all its
forms by 2025.
WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY CELEBRATIONS
“Time for Nature” is the theme for World Environment Day and rightly so. The COVID-19 has shown to the world that nature cannot take anymore. As ecosystems and biodiversity fall to cities, agriculture, infrastructure, climate change and pollution, nature’s ability to provide food, oxygen, clean water and climate regulation plummets. This directly impacts human health and wealth. Today is the day that we at PARAS call on all everyone to work together to protect the nature that supports us all. The stronger our planet’s life support systems are, the better human health and wealth will be. To celebrate this day, we raised awareness on keeping wild spaces wild, stopping deforestation and restoring degraded land to protect biodiversity, boost food production and store carbon. We used the digital platform, sloganeering, wall paintings, tree plantations, minimising plastic pollution, awareness program and a drive for cleaning the surroundings were organized on this occasion. Students planted trees and to follow the sustainable and environment-friendly way to live life and protect nature.
