A project by Inner Wheel Club is helping Chennai citizens raise a garden and compost their kitchen waste

Inner wheel club. Photo: special arrangement 

In the last six months, Prabha Ramesh has helped raise four terrace gardens and inspired 12 people to start composting their kitchen waste. Through home visits, calls and follow-ups, these citizens are urged to do their bit to reduce the burden on landfills.

Prabha is a volunteer with Project Vilvam, initiated by the chairman of Inner Wheel District 323 Kamala Selvam. Besides raising kitchen or rooftop gardens, these volunteers encourage others to follow their example, and also show them how to go about it. Through this work, they have impacted homes, schools, service-based organisations and individuals. For an initiative that started in June, it has covered much ground. “We have 56 clubs in the district and in the last six months we would have done good work in more than 40 government schools,” says Sheetal Satish, project coordinator, Vilvam.

She notes that in the past, the Club had associated with a majority of these institutions, which aids the smooth execution of the ongoing project.

Club members work with old age homes too in a big way. “At an old age home in Mylapore, the yield from the backyard had been feeding the seniors,” says Sheetal.

The larger goal of this project is to make sure every household segregates their waste and also undertake composting on their premises. “I stay in an apartment with no common facility for composting biodegredable waste but I have a 20-litre bucket that does the job for us,” says Prabha, club coordinator, Inner Wheel Club of Chennai Symphony.

Vilvam is not target-oriented; nor are there plans to give away prizes to the best-maintained gardens. “This is just an initiative to build awareness and we hope this would be an ongoing project for the Club,” says Sheetal.

How is the initiative’s progress tracked? There are constant updates on the WhatsApp group on the progress made by each of the clubs.

Prabha says, “Each club has a coordinator and four clubs are headed by a project coordinator. Every month, a progress report reviewing the work is shared.”