Three days of asking why: the volunteers' workshop

Every volunteer of the Foundation is asked to be samajhdar, zimmedar and bhagidar — to understand, to take responsibility and to take part. In the first days of January 2015 the Foundation gave them three days to do the first of these properly.

The workshop opened on the evening of 2 January with one question: why have we come? The next morning began with an introduction to the Foundation, and then a session called "the problems of India's villages — as we understand them, and as they really are". The afternoon went into causes and remedies, and then into "what should we do, why, and how?", before an evening of open discussion. On 4 January the volunteers did a practical task together and then defined, in their own words, what a karyakarta is.

The same afternoon, 4 January, children from the villages presented posters at an environment awareness programme, and five days later students of IIT Roorkee arrived for a camp in the villages. It was a busy start to the year that would turn the fruit-tree campaign into a movement.