bon is a non-profit organization. bon wants to restore the environment using ecological agriculture as a tool. We will do so by working with the farming communities while addressing their need. bon in Bengali means forest. We want to make our rural landscape more forest-like.
External link for bonforest
Belda, West Bengal 721451, IN
When we visited Kanglu's garden today.
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Kanglu worked with us as a gardener. He recently became a father, that's why he needed to take a break from work. When, I went to visit his place, I was amazed to see what he has done with his garden. He kept these two bottle gords for seeds. The sheer sizes was just fantastic. Quite possibly we get those seeds for him from South India.
A lot has been happening off late, starting from a renting a old mud house to call it our collective home to celebrating children's day with grand feast and fest. Sending you a glimpse of what we did on this children's day. Bappada, is an an fantastic musician, human being and so much at ease with kids. He was playing a Bengali folk music for our kids.
A few days back, when I (Biman) wrote something about collective leadership and how we are engaging with interns like Sajal to make him ready to be part of the leadership, a friend asked what the goals of Sajal for bon. I wanted to address this insightful question in this post. At this stage, our priority is to help Sajal explore his inner world by allowing him to express his thoughts on rural life, nature, family bonding, and more through writing, discussions, and reflections. A potential leader becomes a true leader when their horizon of the worldview broadens and they become confident in their way of being. These qualities are largely missing in the life of Sajal, and his likes as our social status quo always make them feel inferior to their peers; no matter how amazing they are, it will never be enough as there will always be some bigger fish to fry! The problem is from birth, we are always made to see so much to the outside world for constant validation and little do we learn to look within. That is why we believe in creating opportunities for people like Sajal so that they figure out what truly matters in their lives before setting their goals for bon. In the process, if they realize their heart lies somewhere else and not bon, we would be delighted to support them in their journey however we can. My life's purpose is to help people find who they are because once someone genuinely realizes that they would not feel any separation from the world, the lack of which is the root of most of the problems we see around us. Bon is a medium where we use food to connect people with themselves and the world around them. Creating a resilient food system, holistic education, and local economy is just a byproduct of that effort. With warm regards from rural Bengal!
Building collective leadership! In my experience, many great social causes we fight for often become only a few people-centric (usually the founder (s)). As a result, no matter how powerful the idea is, it falls as its founder fades away in memory lane! At bon, that is why I (Biman) am trying to put the idea at the center stage in these formative years. Building a collective leadership plays a big part in that. An essential part of collective leadership is to set aside our egos (especially of the founder) and find out where we want to move as a society to create a resilient future. This direction is primarily guided by the core principles from which the first idea brewed. Here, the key is to let the process evolve as new people and perspectives emerge while keeping the core principles intact. One can compare it with ecological succession. The players of the ecosystem change as time progresses, yet providing stability to the ecosystem remains the core principle. A leader is as good as their worldview. Often, our worldviews open when we face diverse circumstances and people. Living in four countries, traveling to another 20, and interacting with thousands of people, I can vouch for how positively changed how I think of the world. Being based in the village often limits the exposure of our rural leaders. Currently, we are building a space in the village where we can host people across the globe so that our people can get exposed to the outer world beyond digital media. At the same time, I am working on bringing our leaders out of the village and letting them interact with the outer world. Last week, I invited our teammate, Sajal (who writes in Bengali for bon), to stay with me in Kolkata. I organized a feast that my musician, writer, and conservationist friends attended. Sajal, who has an artistic mind, got to interact with all of them. I could see fascination during these interactions in his eyes. On the other hand, my friends were impressed by the simplicity and ingenuity of the young man! Sajal is a social leader. His vision for our region inspires me a great deal. My goal is to slowly build up collective leadership by bringing people like Sajal on board and giving them exposure so that our societies are set on the path of creating a resilient future even long after we are gone. Sajal is in blue shirt in the pictures.