Plastic Free India – Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

“A clean India would be the best tribute India could pay to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150 birth anniversary in 2019,”

said Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi as he launched the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Mission) at Rajpath in New Delhi. On 2nd October 2014, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched throughout length and breadth of the country as a national movement. The campaign aims to achieve the vision of a ‘Clean India’ by 2nd October 2019. The mission focuses on sanitation and clean drinking water throughout the country.

Metas Adeventist College organized an awareness Campaign and Cleanliness Drive under Swachh Bharat Swasth Bharat Abhiyaan Programme on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti. The main purpose of this programme was to create awareness among the students regarding Cleanliness and its benefits. Under this programme, all the students from BBA, BCOM and MBA had to participate. Even teachers were the essential part of this drive.

Metas Adeventist College contributed to Swachh Bharat Abhiyan with following actions:

AWARENESS PROGRAMME:

The head of the Health Department of Surat Municipal Corporation addressed staff and students of Metas Adeventist College on 1st October 2019 on cleanliness and sensitized the movement. He shared the ill effects of using one time use plastic and also elaborated its harmful effect on to the environment. At this point the students also took an oath to eliminate the use of single use plastic.

POSTER MAKING COMPETITION:

With the aim to create awareness into students and to people Vivacity Club organized a “Poster Making Competition” with the theme of “Plastic Free India”. Around 13 teams with five students in each team participated in this event. These teams were from different departments like commerce, management and nursing. The students were asked to use only colors and Sketching for the poster making. The team from TyBcom class secured the second runners up position, the class team of TYBBA A secured the first runners up place and the class team of SYBBA A was declared the winners. Two experts from the school were called upon to judge the event. After a through tour of the teams they declared the winners. Over all it was a great event which completely fulfilled its objective by creating an awareness in the students.

CLEANLINESS DRIVE ON DUMAS BEACH:

Many of the students and staff members of the Metas Adventist College participated in the Cleanliness Drive to clean the Dumas beach and surrounding area of it as the part of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan on 2nd October 2019. This was the first ever effort wherein all staff and students participated in the drive.

Vivacity Club of Metas Adventist College organised a cleanliness drive under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, on 2nd October 2019 7.30 am. to 11.30 am. and collected more than 25 bags of garbage (paper waste/Plastic waste/ Plastic bottles) from various locations on the Dumas beach and surrounding area of it. More than 60 students, non teaching staff and our faculty members from our Department participated in this campaign. This is the next step after the cleanliness drive in the campus after 2018 initiative.

The cleanliness drive under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is initiated to encourage, motivate, and institutionalize the concept of cleanliness among the students, teaching community, and administrative supporting staff from undergraduate level. At this stage, the student community can be shaped to be good citizens with a mindset to make the concept of 'Clean and Green India' a reality.

The initiative will definitely motivate the institutions that are really practicing the concept of cleanliness from inception, and can be a bench mark to other institutions to emulate. The overall aspect considered while evaluating the institutions is the existing practices followed to maintain good and efficient environment which positively affects the health and learning of the student/teaching community. The practice of cleanliness must be on a regular and continuous basis as the concept of cleanliness leads to overall improvement of the credibility of academic institutions.

In the beginning everyone took an oath of keeping our home, locality and city clean. The SMC (Surat Municipal corporation) was a great help in conducting the event. They not only gave us permission with allotted area but also provided us with all sort of equipments for this drive. The Club took care of the personal hygiene for the students and the faculty, hence provided everyone with mask and hand gloves.

The Club members started the programme by cleaning different parts of the beach. Then the teachers and students followed suit. Some of them picked brooms and started their job. Some of the students cleaned the surrounding parts. And others went to the beach side places and started picking wrappers lying scattered there. After collecting them they threw them in to the dustbins. After doing this job for two to three hours, all assembled at the center area. It was a unique experience for everyone. All the participants were delighted to be the part of this great drive that could have transformed the face of our country for ever.

Date

2019-10-02