Margaret Edwin Molomoo (IF'11)
Margaret Edwin Molomoo
India
Tarumitra
“We live in a time when our world is facing poverty, natural and human made disasters conflicts among nations and so on. The society where I live, the women and girls in particular experience violence, discrimination, abuse, sexual and powerlessness both at home and outside. My participation in the iLEAP International Fellowship program will surely help me to explore my leadership ability to initiate various activities that will bring social changes in my society.”
About Tarumitra
Tarumitra, meaning “friends of trees”, is a forum to engage youth in environmental understanding and conservation projects in both urban and rural areas in India. Currently, Tarumitra is working with 1,600 schools an universities to teach and create positive environmental change, with a focus on “thinking globally, acting locally”. The members of Tarumitra work together with community members to invent new and exciting ways to protect the environment through community-based initiatives. Among the wide variety of community based activities, Tarumitra has turned dozens of road-side dumps into organic gardens, improved roads to reduce vehicle pollution, and has even started a reusable bag campaign to decrease the use of plastics in Bihar. More than 1600 schools and colleges collaborate with Tarumitra, including Zamorano University, an agriculture university in Honduras.
About Edwin
Margaret Edwin Molomoo has diverse leadership experience working with different communities and with different levels of people. She has engaged with farmers in the field on promoting organic farming methods, women’s self help groups through income generating activities, as well as on issues such as domestic abuse, child education and child labor. In 2009, Edwin joined Tarumitra to apply her experience to the environmental sustainability movement in India. Taru-“Tree”, Mitra-“Friend” meaning “Friends of trees” in Hindi is a forum for students to protect environment. Edwin works to educate students, farmers, and women about the methods and benefits of organic farming in villages surrounding Bahir. She has successfully assisted many farming groups in changing their use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers in their farming practices.
