Bhubaneswar: The adage charity begins at home is aptly being translated into action through the innovative “Mu Safaiwala Programme for school students across the State Capital in which more than 100,000 students will be taking pledge to be messengers of cleanliness and also try to make their parents, kin and surrounding aware about the basic “mantra of cleanliness. The programme, undertaken by the largest civic body of Odisha will cover 194 schools in the city of which 134 private schools and 60 government schools. While students of all these schools have taken a pledge of cleanliness under “Mu Safaiwala Programme, questionnaires for assessment of cleanliness have been distributed in more than 50 schools so far and others will be covered soon. Interestingly, there will be 100 marks per questionnaire. If a student scores more than 80 marks then he/she will be considered as “Mu Safaiwala and if he/she scores less will be known as “Mu Aliawala (one who creates filth). While the Team BMC is gearing up to make the distribution of the questionnaire in all 194 schools under the target, November 16 will be the last date and collection of questionnaire will start after that date. “Through the questionnaire a student will get awareness, make his/her parents and relatives aware and the output will be calculated accordingly. If suppose in a school more than 60 percent marks from the questionnaire will be below 80 percent, then we have to rethink about the awareness drive under Mu Safaiwala in that particular school and will go for another round of awareness drive so that the students will understand the important things on cleanliness and Swachh Bharat initiayive, said an official of BMC. It can be mentioned here that the ambitious “Mu Safaiwala Programme was dedicated to citizens of Bhubaneswar on October 2 on the auspicious day of 150th birthday of the Father of the Nation. In a public gathering at Satyanagar Chief Minister Naveen Patanaik inaugurated the “Mu Safaiwala Programme with bush and colour. More than 300 students from different schools also took part in wall painting, branding of the mascot of “Mu Safaiwala and taking the pledge. The pledges under the “Mu Safaiwala Campaign is to make people aware on stopping the use of polythene, use of own bags for day-to-day life and stop using single use plastic to make our environment cleaner, healthier and making our planet a better place to live in. WHY SCHOOLKIDS? The “Mu Safaiwala Campaign will be a peoples movement and needs continuous triggering for sustained behaviour change. As children are agents of social change, participation of whom can bring enormous transformation in the society in general, and in their home in particular. This can be achieved through educating children on the ill effect of waste generation and indiscriminate disposal of waste in the environment. The concept of waste management lies on the fact that minimization of waste at the point of generation is an important aspect of managing waste, and therefore the term coined as “reduce” when combine with other three terms re-use, recycle and recover (4 Rs) completely describe the concept of sustainable management of the household waste in urban areas. The campaign is designed to be executed in three phases starting from October 2, 2019 and will last for 90 days up till January 3, 2020. It is hoped that the initiative would act as a catalyst in accelerating the implementation of sanitation projects and programmes, particularly solid waste management and would bring in changes in the fairly age-old practices adhered by the household for a better, sustained and climate-friendly environment. Related Comments comments

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