♠ How can I help? ♠
There are so many ways you can personally connect with BNAC, its activities and above all its cause!
Volunteering
There are more than 150 pairs of helping hands supporting BNAC in Andheri, Mumbai. The high level of commitment and dedication from the team is what allows us to keep up our work. Volunteers provide support in the following areas:
- Animal care, rescue and rehabilitation of injured animals
- Supervision and participation during school visits
- Organization of workshops on environmental sustainability
- Capacity building
- Training in and supervision of adventure activities
- Organizational support of events such as the annual Prakruti festival
- Promotion and marketing
- Maintenance and modernization of premises,plantation and exibits
- Recycling and handicrafts
If you are interested in our work and would like to put hands on in any of the above stated fields, we are happy to hear from you. Contact us by mail or drop by our centre, to find out more about potential volunteering opportunities!
Apart from giving your personal time, BNAC appreciates any monetary contributions to our cause. These may allow us to keep-up current activities, shape future projects, and increase our reach to children from lower-income backgrounds. Donations will be used, for example, to:
- Offer free educational field trips to underprivileged school children – 4.000 INR allow 10 children to learn about biodiversity, rainwater harvesting and solar energy to equip them with important skills
- Maintain and develop our sanctuary for injured animals – running a rescue and rehabilitation animal centre is cost intensive, and includes essential weekly veterinary fees, medicine expenses, food, etc. After prior consultation we also accept animal food
- Maintain and develop the biodiversity at our centre – including expenses associated to acquiring and planting new trees and rare plant species, professional gardener fees, building nesting boxes, etc.
- Capacity-building – capacity-building of the BNAC team is an ongoing process, as we try to always improve and expand our set of skills. The main areas we focus on are advanced natural sciences and marketing. Better marketing skills will allow us to increase the reach of BNAC to more schools and corporate partners, and help us become more self-sufficient.
- In-kind donation – In-kind donations may be accepted if in demand and after prior consultation particularly as the requirements are specific in nature.
Partnering
We believe that we can learn a lot form each other if you are a profit or non-profit entity in the field of environment protection or in another area. We are highly interested in teaming up with like-minded organizations with similar causes, as sharing experiences and coordination of activities may create synergies that will be mutual beneficial. It is crucial that NGOs don’t see themselves as competitors in a world of limited funds, but as potential partners that work towards a common goal.
Awareness Raising
Make the first step to raise awareness of environmental issues by engaging your family and friends in a conversation. Don’t blame anyone’s behavior but live by example: It is easy to talk about this topic but more important try to change one’s personal behaviors and routines accordingly (e.g prevent unnecessary waste, question the origin of the products you buy, learn about nature and biodiversity, think about your personal relationship to your environment, etc.). Social change always starts with the actions of individuals and small actions may have a very beneficial impact. Click here to find out more advice how you easily sustain a more environmentally friendly lifestyle.