Action CLEAN

Today most of our towns and cities are unable to cope with the rapid pace of urbanisation. People do not understand that it is their right to clean water to drink, clean air to breathe, proper housing, education and health. We also shun our responsibility of keeping our environment clean. It is an acceptable fact that no government can keep cities clean by mere enforcement of environmental laws. Public co-operation and participation is vital for cleaner and greener cities.

Though school itself is a unit of the community, CLEAN-India is not confined to schools. The programme envisages learning for students through community service and scientific investigation. This helps the youth discover and implement lasting solutions to environmental issues in their community. It also develops life-long habits of active citizenship and environmental stewardship.

In the water quality monitoring programme, if students find the water quality to be poor they recommend simple steps to improve the water quality. This can be as simple as boiling water to using chlorine as a disinfectant. Follow-up action undertaken include stream cleaning as in Shillong, spreading awareness to avoid bathing and washing activities near the water springs as in Berinag, to ensuring the school authorities regularly keep the water tanks cleaned and chlorinated in the schools. After testing water of school taps, many schools have become more vigilant about maintaining the cleanliness of the water tanks while a few schools have also installed water purification systems.

Similarly after monitoring the air quality with the help of Pawan TARA Kit, students have been motivated to form car pools and coax their parents to get their vehicles Pollution Checks performed regularly. Students have also noted registration numbers of polluting vehicles on roads and reported them to the concerned authorities.

CLEAN students have also spearheaded campaigns of local relevance to enthuse local communities to change their attitudes. Major issues which CLEAN students have campaigned for, are the ill effects of the use of polybags and toxic colours during Holi, implications of bursting crackers during certain festivals  and propagating environment friendly way of idol immersion during certain festivals. Once the students are convinced about the issues, they actively campaign to further spread awareness in their own school, neighbouring communities and even nearby schools. Whether the medium is creative street plays, public hearings, rallies, door to door signature campaigns, exhibitions or competitions, CLEAN students have been highly successful in spreading the message to more and more number of people.

With the help of CLEAN-Delhi, Ramjas School, R.K.Puram, New Delhi along with neighbourhood schools carried out a big campaign in their sector to make it a cracker free zone. This Holi festival, many of our schools made and sold natural colours to parents and others. Making paper bags from old newspapers / notebooks, distributing them to shopkeepers and urging them to stop using polybags, is an activity which many schools undertake regularly in all CLEAN-India centres.

UNDERTAKING ENVIRONMENT IMROVEMENT ACTIONS

CLEAN students have over the years initiated various action projects in schools and are gradually extending it to the community. For implementing each project, CLEAN provides equipment, technical expertise, and support at each crucial stage, manuals and other information to the schools. Experts assist the schools in understanding and implementing the above projects.

Plant, care, nurture and go green!

Many students have taken part in afforestation drives where the emphasis extends beyond the act of tree plantation. Students are taught how to take care of trees and nurture them. After planting in school they return home motivated to plant in their homes, parks and care more for the existing trees. Students also take part in drives to remove advertisements nailed into trees, remove tree guards from grown trees and to de-tile pavements close to the tree trunk.

Clean,Collect,and compost !

Under the CLEAN’s solid waste management project, students among other things, have gained hands-on-experience in vermicomposting which shows them effective ways of taking care of biodegradable waste. In the process it brings alive the concepts learnt in class about decomposition in nature and how earthworms function. 

Adopt A Slum
Slums are a common feature of most urban cities in the country. They give shelter to people with poor economic conditions and the migrant population. They are characterised by lack of education, high density of population, unhygienic environment and sanitation, poor health and other problems. 

The students then start various activities in the slums like literacy campaigns, sourcing them with old books, clothes, and stationary, educating the people about medicinal plants, etc. Projects which have been implemented in their own school like composting, paper recycling, etc. are also initiated in the slums, as these would improve not only the environment but also their income. Other activities like the clean up drives, getting eco - lavatories constructed, planting fruit bearing trees, etc. are taken up gradually and as per the need.

CLEAN-India is a dynamic programme, which keeps evolving with each formal or informal feedback received. Activities are included or modified as per the demands of the students or the local needs. For example in Shillong stream cleaning became a major activity, while campaigning for Yamuna was a priority in Delhi.

THE ACHIEVEMENTS

The real success of the programme is visible in the seemingly simple acts like: students exchanging books in a new academic session thus indirectly saving paper and thereby also the trees; switching off lights before leaving their classrooms; closing a flowing tap even in public places; using natural colours in Holi, etc . The achievement of CLEAN-India is exemplified most when students opt for future studies in subjects related to environmental sciences and more so continue to be environmentally sensitive and active even in diverse fields. Most of all, the programme has proven that indeed child power can go a long way in bringing about attitudinal change in the society. After all they are our future.