While working on Olympics we have made attempts to promote virtual edit-a-ton on a different theme altogether, we also decided to make the awards different. For every 15 good articles created by an editor, Wikimedia India would be planting trees on their behalf in their name symbolising '
Wikipedia India Supports India at Olympics, tree planted by Wikipedian......'. Considering tree plantation involves significant time and human labour, we have partnered with a tree plantation organisation
SankalpTaru. They would be our sponsors for this event. Pomegranate trees in Barmer, Thar Desert Rajasthan would be planted. These trees will be planted on a rural farmer's land who would further nurture these trees under the supervision of SankalpTaru. Once the harvest starts, the local inhabitants would start earning livelihood by selling fruits (based on the consent of Wikipedia who is awarded the respective tree). A virtual forest could also be monitored online
here. This is a novel idea of English Wikipedian Mr. Rudra Pratap Sinha (
User:JimCarter). Wikimedia India is further bringing this this idea into practice, more information
here.