2023-08-23
Location: Community Center, Ward 5, Rishikesh
Date: 2021-09-10
Ward no. 5 of Rishikesh comes together to celebrate their waste champions
One of Project Aviral’s tireless commitments is towards ensuring source segregation among the residents in Ward no. 5, which is one of the pilot wards for the project. In pursuance of this commitment, we organized a waste champion’s training on the theme “Eco-friendly Ganesh Chaturthi” along with felicitating them in the local community center.
We began the event with the Mayor of Rishikesh, Mrs. Anita Mamgain, lighting the Diya and speaking about the importance of source segregation and how it forms a bedrock of the city’s waste management system. The Mayor then felicitated six waste champions that were identified as a part of the door-to-door awareness survey by us and community leaders of Ward no. 5. These waste champions were undertaking various initiatives at their personal level such as innovative upcycling practices, home composting, and conducting afforestation drives. They shared their eco-friendly practices to inspire other ward members and encourage them to take small steps towards good waste management practices such as source segregation.
The training was attended by 63 participants, mostly female community members and children. The ward councilor briefed the participants about the objective of our Aviral team, the importance of source segregation, and its impact on the health of Ganga. He urged the community members to support the Aviral team by rigorously monitoring source segregation in their neighborhoods to make Ward no. 5 the first model ward of Rishikesh with 100% source segregation. The ASHA and Anganwadi workers also expressed their interest in incorporating messages of source segregation of waste in their daily interactions and activities on the field with the ward residents. Our team was so glad for the support that it was receiving from different quarters of the community!
To engage the children with a fun activity, the team gamified source segregation where the participants threw a ball in the right bin, i.e. blue, green, and red bins, on the basis of waste described. This activity saw enthusiastic participation of not only the kids but also adults present at the training. At the end of the program, all the community members present took a pledge to segregate waste at home, to stop littering/dumping at open spaces, and to reduce plastic waste in the Ganga river. It was truly a heart-warming sight to see the community come together with such fervor to bring about a change in their waste management practices.
