Lily Pool Project

Lily Pool is a 3 acre park in Kolkata spread in the southern fringe of the green Rabindra Sarobar. In its prime, Lily pool was a beautifully manicured park known for its lush garden, exotic flowers and water pools.

However, negligence for three decades had reduced the park to a crumbling structure of stones and weeds. The park which was once frequented by families and children had turned into a hangout for miscreants. The existence of a beautiful park beyond the overgrown shrubs and weeds was well forgotten and unknown to many until the YES!+ Kolkata team and WAYE decided to restore the park to its previous glory. We were sure that the restoration would make a highly positive impact on its surrounding environment and society for Lily Pool was located in the heart of the city's residential area.

On February 11th 2010, Sri Sri Ravishankar, the founder of the Art of Living Foundation, demonstrated the impact of community service when He joined and participated in the restoration of Lily Pool. Sri Sri with 175 young WAYE volunteers led the cleaning by shoveling garbage with absolute gusto. Emphasising on the need to bring about environment awareness Sri Sri said, "No one single agency or authority can undertake this mission. We need all to join hands so that together, we make a difference."

So far, the cleaning project has revealed a couple of rock gardens other than the pools and pathways, the broken structures have been repaired and painted, elders and children are back and the park already looks rejuvenated. Inspired by this initiative of the youngsters, the elders of the neighborhood have begun to participate in the renovation activities. As a result of active media interest, the event was featured in various English as well as vernacular newspapers and appeared in the environment segment of NDTV 24x7.