OUR CORRESPONDENT
TEZPUR: The three-day-long festival, christened as 'Green Hub Festival', organized by the frontline NGO Green Hub, Tezpur concluded at NERIWALM auditorium. The festival is organized every year in a bid to raise awareness, celebrate, debate and examine environment and conservation vis-à-vis other critical issues such as those related to social change in Northeast India.
Talking to The Sentinel, Bonty Saikia, Project Lead, Green Hub (NEN-DFP) said, "Green Hub festival is an integral part of the larger Green Hub programme, which engages youth and the community for conservation action through the digital medium. This year's theme was 'Towards a Resilient Future: People and Nature".
The first day's programme began with a beautiful song of resilience and change by Arghadeep Barua (Green Hub alumni, artist, and actor) and Ratan Bora (musician), followed by a brief introduction of Green Hub and the planned events by Rita Banerji, founder-director of Green Hub.
The highlight of the day was Padma Shri award winner Satyanarayanan Mundayoor, best known as Uncle Moosa, the travelling library man of India, who kept the audience spellbound with a reading from an Arunachali folk tale. He has been working in Arunachal Pradesh for more than four decades now, transforming the lives of children and youth through books and storytelling.
Other noted speakers of the day were Setrichem Sangtam (Founder, Better Life Foundation, Eastern Nagaland); Sutanuka Deb (Project Manager, Foundation for Ecological Security, Meghalaya); Sejal Mehta (a well-known editor and author of Superpowers on the Shore and member of The Habitats Trust); and members of the Farm2Food Foundation. Films of the fifth and sixth batch fellows were screened, with topics ranging from wildlife and biodiversity to the preservation of cultural traditions and practices and insects as food. The closing ceremony ended with certificates awarded to the 5th and 6th batches for successful completion of their Green Hub Fellowship.
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