Srishti – shedding light on responsible travel
It would give boundless happiness if I start this column, writing about something which belongs to our creation, and something which makes us proud being a traveler and a woman!
Being responsible while travelling! Its quiet plain sailing to be read but arduous to execute! We are trying to make this possible with our travel group, Let’s go for a camp– travel with a purpose! As travelers and explorers, we have passed almost forty plus nature camps at different locations in and around India! It gave a new phase in life where we make realize people that this earth also belongs to our upcoming generations and these frames of nature must stay with unaltered character, for them to behold it!
Posterior end of our camps made realize that we, as women have as a crucial role to play in the game of protecting nature! From that deep thought, sprouted, Srishti, a women wing of our travel group. Initially, the only aim was to take women with us, to explore, experience and enjoy but fleetly we visualized our camps with zero waste! It is not the waste management programs we hooked up with. It was solely a concept that rules within the power of women and only women!
Many of our co-travelers step back during the camps just because they don’t want to showcase the inconveniences during their menstruation, many of them put forward their views of travelling during menstruation and many of them found guilty of throwing the menstrual waste into the forests while exploring, some of them stood aloof when the others took deep dips in fresh waterfalls and natural pools. Yes, we knew all this, right from the beginning because it is the nature of menstruation! Really? No! It is just our attitude of how we react to it! It may differ in a few cases but things are not the same always!
Earlier, this was exactly our problem too, but on our journey we came across a revolutionary product and a solver to all the above mentioned problem- the menstrual cups which seemed interesting on the concept of Zero waste! One among us had already researched about this and we were quiet sure about the authenticity and safety of menstrual cups. We calculated the amount of pad wastes we throw every year into the nature. 432 million pad wastes annually!! It was really shocking for us who simultaneously work for the betterment of nature! As a traveler, as a human being and as women, we thought something is urging us and that is how “Green the Red” campaign happened, which opened a platform to talk about the taboo, to find possibilities and to execute them for a greater cause!
Further, in all our camps we started introducing menstrual cups, reusable napkins, washable cotton pads etc… Among all these, the menstrual cups stood effective and new to most of the women we met with! We conversed on detailed information, sharing the information about the best quality cups, clearing all queries that every common women would have, spread the confidence in using it and most importantly urging them to contribute to the nature with zero waste. Through this effort, many of our co-travelers have already supported the concept and started using the menstrual cups and other products which does not bring waste to the nature. On this journey, one day we might see women who are responsible to nature and one day the revolution will happen! It would be a triumph for the efforts taken!
I repeat, being responsible is something rigid for a common women! Ignoring plastic napkins is an impossible thing for the girls in our society so far, but our shot is all about make realize that there is a scope beyond the impossible, and the only effort to be taken is to “try”, so that one day impossible things might turn possible!
If any women traveler really wishes to bring back the harmony between man and the nature, we Srishti have something to say repeatedly “Start with you!”!