A member organization of the United Nations Billion Tree Campaign, Embracing the World has organized the planting of more than 1 million trees globally since 2001. After the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, ETW stabilized 13 kilometers of Kerala's coast by planting 30,000 Casuarina saplings along the shoreline.



Through GreenFriends, our global grassroots environmental movement, we promote environmental awareness and local participation in conservation efforts throughout the world. GreenFriends stands apart from other conservation movements in its baseline philosophy - that we must act to save the environment not because our own lives depend on it, but because Nature is the mother of humanity and all living beings, and as such it is our responsibility to care for her. GreenFriends sees this paradigm shift as essential to securing a serious and lasting commitment to sustainable development.



Apart from planting trees, GreenFriends activities include permaculture, organic food production and beekeeping. GreenFriends also builds eco-friendly dwellings, promote the use of Efficient Micro-organisms (EM) as sanitizing agents, preserve land and water ecosystems, recycle and reduce waste. To reconnect people with nature, GreenFriends conduct workshops, nature retreats and group meditation in forests and other natural settings.
In Kerala, ETW also maintains three medicinal plant gardens covering more than 10 acres. The project is aimed at conserving coastal, midland and forest ecosystems, and providing employment for local women.

Self-reliant Village Project
The Plastic Project
"GrowIn' - One Seed at a Time"

Self-reliant Village Project

In Kerala, Embracing the World has initiated a project to help tribal people develop self-reliant villages, allowing them to maintain their traditional ways, despite the continuing encroachment of industrial society. The project introduces training in arts such as honey gathering, vegetable agriculture, animal husbandry, and water harvesting. Schools supporting their lifestyle are being established to allow the youth to remain in their villages instead of being forced to migrate to urban centers and abandon their cultural ties.

The Plastic Project

Plastic bags can take over 300 years to degrade and are not compostable. Less than 2% of all plastic bags ever get recycled - most end up in landfills. Plastic waste has become so prevalent in today's world that birds have started to use it to build their nests. Every year, 100,000 marine animals and 2 million birds die each year from ingesting or being caught up in plastic debris.

Inspired by one ETW volunteer's vision to minimize the environmental impact of plastic waste, the Plastic Project has already grown into an international initiative, with ETW volunteers around the world creating handmade bags and other items by weaving plastic waste into durable, fashionable fabrics. Each Plastic Project item is unique, brightly colored and painstakingly produced to a high standard. Techniques such as knitting, sewing, weaving and crocheting are used to create attractive, stylish items.

Production includes shopping bags, purses, sandals, hats, and mobile phone covers. The Plastic Project is currently active in India, America, Japan and Europe. At ETW's headquarters in Kerala, volunteers from all over the world are helping to produce 1,000 folding cots for disaster victims; the cots' canvas is woven out of hard plastic packing straps that are otherwise non-recyclable.

"GrowIn' - One Seed at a Time"

GrowIn' is an international youth initiative started by AYUDH, Embracing the World's youth movement. GrowIn' is dedicated to unifying the world around solutions to preserve biodiversity and promote sustainable, organic agriculture. Through the online platform www.ayudh.eu/growin and local training courses, the youth learn how to utilize every possible location to grow vegetables, be it a city balcony, a window shelf or a garden. The aim is to grow healthy, organic and locally grown food hence reducing our footprint on the earth and reconnecting to Nature.

The mission of GrowIn' is to inspire the world community to rise to the challenge of growing and developing a seed bank with non-genetically altered seeds (organic).

Through GrowIn', AYUDH aims to create a new sense of urgency and possibility for our planet to produce crops naturally without alteration and restore naturally grown crops throughout the world without the use of pesticides & fertilizers.

As with all of other AYUDH initiatives, AYUDH seeks to be the change they wish to see in the world - AYUDH members all over the world are starting organic gardens and organic seed banks in their own backyards.

At the local level, AYUDH members are working to create and support youth groups that exchange ideas, know-how and seeds, support one another and organize trainings to learn how to grow their own food. Doing so, they also green their homes and cities.

Globally, AYUDH aims to foster a general awareness on the world's food challenges and the behaviors that can positively impact them.