A day which is celebrated as trash cleanup drive everywhere across the world and this year Kolkata took its turn to celebrate at Kolkata Mullick Ghat (A.k.A Flower Market) which also captures the scenic beauty of Howrah Bridge and River Ganges. Bouddi Solutions along with its local partner and catalyser Y-East organised an art and awareness drive at the above place to celebrate River Ganges Clean up drive, which has been started a month back every Sunday.
"Since 1st of September, every Sunday, we have come back to Mullick Ghat and organised clean up and awareness drives.We are not going anywhere else until we sustainable, tangible impact over here ! "
- Pauline (Founder, Y-East and Sustainability Director at Techno India Group)
Around 50 volunteers (including 12 tiny kids) got together on the day and started with cleaning the space that followed the art creating and discussion on the importance to keep our surroundings clean. The Upper Ghat area is now covered by big chalkwork! The art work was created by Paramita Saha (Director at Artsforward) along with the kids from New Light Kolkata and local children. Volunteers and participants also took part in creating this massive art!
"It was amazing to see how art involved young minds with so much joy to share the message on cleanliness on this World Cleanup Day"
- Ajay Mittal (Director, Climate Change Programmes, Earth Day Network)
The whole area around the ghat is a much better space after the volunteers left for the day and we could feel that the most enjoyed lot were the kids who had so much fun and learnt a lot about cleanliness. The local people were very supportive of the effort and have shown much interest to make sure that the knowledge that has been shared, does not get wasted and each one would pass on to the other around.
"For World Cleanup Day 2019, we wanted to do things differently"
- Lochie Burke (Founder,Bouddi Solutions)
This Art Drive took further depth as it fell within the frame of the Global Climate Strike Week from 20th to 27th September. Kolkata has started to witness the fresh air of change which is the need of the hour.
River Ganges has always been a beauty to eyes, but the amount of waste we dump on the ghat and river is really a cause of concern for the environment. Every individual has a basic duty towards environment and if we do our basic right, we would never have to face the climate crisis that we are in today.
You can reach out to Enakshi Majumder (Project Manager, Ganges River Cleanup Project at enakshimajumder7@gmail.com or follow us (Inwaster is WMedia Partner for River Ganges Cleanup Project for more updates on the project.