When, social media is flooded with posts and updates on the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, a couple of young volunteers in the temple city of Bhubaneswar, made their hands dirty by cleaning up the roads and streets post Diwali. Lets see what they say after serving a post Diwali Gift..
Partha
“It was the next day of Diwali, when leftovers of crackers and other stuffs had made the streets dirty and unhealthy. We found garbage every corner of road. We the Bakulites planned to be together to start the Swachh Bhubaneswar campaign.
By the time reached morning in BAKUL where I saw only 4 volunteers. We were very few but we decide to start cleaning roads as soon as possible. Suddenly we found 8 more volunteers which was a mere encouragement. So we made 2 groups of 6 members each and started the work.
Our Team B was cleaning the area near SBI Colony in Sataynagar. We cleaned the adjacent road to SBI colony along with its premises.
As we know the chemical leftovers of crackers are harmful, we took precautions in collecting them. It was so untidy and full of garbage and wastes in that area, it took some time to finish it up.
But out team effort made it happen and within a span of 2 hours we completed cleaning that area. The local municipality, BMC has sent its garbage disposal vans which collected the garbage we had cleaned for dumping.
The best part of this act was our coordination, as we complemented each in our work. When i was sweeping the roads, Aarkaja was collecting it and putting all garbage at one place. However, Deepsha was multi-tasking by cleaning and in the same time clicking photos and obviously for facebook. Chandan bhai, was a guide and that worked in properly managing the work and Aarya and Sasmita was a great help in again cleaning and collecting garbage.
Later the neighborhood treated us with water and soft drink which was definitely a relaxation yet satisfying. The cleanliness drive was definitely a learning experience for us and an eye opener for others as well. the neighbors were quite inspired with our post diwali gift, and we wish next year they will adopt this idea of cleaning.
I would like to urge that cleanliness of our surrounding is not always something that we will wait for the government to do. our society is as important as our house and our duty is to make it clean. The roads we use, the parks we sit, the neighbourhood we live, is for us and its our duty to clean it.
I again urge everyone to Clean your surroundings, Plant enough trees and make less pollution because it’s our environment that matters. If environment is fit we will be fit forever.
Anvesh
It was indeed a different experience. I could perceive different shades of personalities in our team. The A Team was considted of Ashlesha Nayak, Siddhant Nayak, Amrita Bal, Abarna Sindhu, Raiman Naik, Samant, Subash Bhai and myself.
We started at about 11:30am in the morning. While cleaning the roads, someone from the neighbourhood saw us cleaning the mess, offered us bottle of water, refilled twice and smiled.
A bunch of aunties were impressed but asked whether we were doing this to impress Narendra Modi which was obviously hilarious. and a young guy also complimented them and the uncle asked us in satire “KAL V AAOGE ? We believe that People everywhere are cynical, and making them believe and involving them in the process is the challenge what we should take up.
We cleaned the mess as much as we can but real impact or at least a dent may happen only if we involve the people of the neighborhood or they take up this issue of cleaning voluntarily no matter any politician urge them to do.
Team Bakul on Post Diwali Clean Up Drive
Bakul Foundation 