Jan Jagran Sangathan, a Noida-based NGO teamed mostly by Sector-50 residents, has been tirelessly working towards environment awareness since many years. Last month, in June, it conducted a 10-day Internship program for school students during summer holidays.
We promoted the Internship through WhatsApp and word-of-mouth and even before we knew, we had a school willing to participate with all its Class 9th and 10th students. This was way bigger than we had anticipated, but we decided to rise up to the challenge and oh what anenthralling 10 days they were.
Our first task was to encourage waste segregation and share daily pictures. This sounds simple but the idea behind it was to develop a habit that would stay even after 10 days. We also introduced various ways in which we can take care of our wet waste through composting, making bio enzymes and feeding vegetable/fruit peels to animals. For plastic free options, we introduced them to muslin roti wraps, wooden combs, toothbrush and our very own Bartan Bhandar.
As our final assignment, we asked them to make a chart of waste journey – to find out what happens to waste once it leaves the house, where does it go, what is the end point; and it was quite interesting to see their expressions when they found out what happens to it i.e. ‘nothing’. No other exercise in my opinion could have convinced them to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Certificates and tokens of appreciation were distributed to participants.
We had a great time interacting with students and teachers, who were very supportive and encouraged their students throughout. Overall, it was an enriching experience for us and we plan to conduct more such programs in near future.
