PIPAL TREE

Established in 1984, Pipal Tree has been concerned with sustainable development and capacity building programmes for the past twenty years. It has its office at the Fireflies Inter-cultural Centre, located in a village 30 kilometres outside Bangalore.

Fireflies is an international training and cultural centre which come under the Pipal Tree trust.

VISION

In a world that is globalising at a rapid pace Pipal Tree is acutely conscious of the millons of people who live below the poverty line in India. The same is unfortuantely the case in many other countries. The dominant paradigm of development also leads to massive environmenal degradation. However Globalisation also offers the possibilty of buidling larger networks and alliances that can work towards mobilising people to transform social and environmental problems. Pipal Tree makes a distinction between poverty and simplicity. Poverty is inhuman, and is to be rejected, but voluntary simplicity is the way ahead if we are to live lightly on the planet and share resources with the needy.

We need structural changes in society along with changes in our values and attitudes to each other and the planet. Personal, social and ecological are the triple pillars of meaningful transformation. In a complex and interdependent world such as ours we need to build broad areas of consensus and unity as well as respect pluralism and diversity. Imaginative and vibrant non-violent methodologies are the only solutions if we are to create a just and ecologically sustainable world.