India journal - Great Lakes Leadership Academy - Michigan State ...

TREE PLANTING AT CYCLONE
THANE IMPACTED COMMUNITY
February 20, 2012
In India, there is a tree for each individual in our group
and each tree is labeled with our name. We had the
great opportunity to plant these trees while traveling in
Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. It was an amazing
experience, and a memory that will be forever
cherished. This is yet another way that India will
forever be in our hearts.
Andrea Boughton
We planted the trees with survivors of
Cyclone Thane, which ravaged their community in late
December of 2011. Women gathered to tell us about
their children and husbands, who had passed on as a
result of Cyclone Thane. The community leader spoke
about the lack of aide they’d received despite the
severity of Cyclone Thane’s destruction, noting
worldwide relief efforts for communities impacted by
tsunamis and earthquakes less acutely destructive
than Thane. Our time with this community was so
short- too short to feel as though the women who
came to talk about the cyclone, their lives before and
after it, had been heard- too short to come to any
resolve about how to help this community, which feels
the impacts and losses afresh from Cyclone Thane
today, halfway across the world. We were blessed
with the opportunity to plant those trees as a tiny
step in rebuilding the ecosystem destroyed by Thane
and to share in the hope, resilience, and dedication of
this community and its leadership.
Robin Clark, photos by Sandra Yu and Robin
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