Indian water pot
'The purpose of MYRiveR is to strengthen the capacity of young people, their families and communties to be informed and active participants in restoring landscapes to health and building sustainable ways of living and working throughout their river catchment.' OzGreen
In June 2004, a group of local students assembled at the mouth of the Murray River in South Australia. They poured fresh water from traditional Indian water pots through their hands into the sea. The water had been collected far upstream from the Murrumbidgee, Murray and Darling rivers as part of the MYRiveR Project. The ceremony was 'to symbolically re-connect river flow memory lines'.
In 2002 OzGreen began the MYRiveR Project in schools in the Murrumbidgee River catchment. As part of the project, over 250 young people from 19 schools tested water quality in local streams. They then developed action plans addressing problems such as salinity and water quality.
Wagga Wagga students from Kooringal High School, Mount Austin High School, Mount Erin High School, Wagga Wagga Christian College and Riverina Anglican College all took part in the MYRiveR project. They identified high salinity levels in Flowerdale Lagoon, Bomen Lagoon, Dukes Creek, Houlaghans Creek and Kyeamba Creek.
As part of the project, in January 2003 students from Wagga Wagga, Narrandera, Tumut, and Cootamundra travelled to India to discuss water quality issues at a global student congress.
During 2003 and 2004 schools from the Darling and Murray catchments became involved in the MYRiveR project. Over three years, more than 1500 students from the Murray-Darling Basin participated in the MYRiveR project.
OzGreen organised the ceremony at the Murray River mouth as a symbolic response to upstream processes of water salinisation and extraction.
