GHMC Mayor Bonthu Rammohan today emphasized that the WOW clubs would help children realize their full potential and prepares them for a healthy adult life and contribute to the growth of the nation.
The Mayor launched the WOW Club 2000 at Shilpakala Vedika jointly organized by the GHMC and ITC. WOW education in schools help promote those practices that would prevent water and sanitation related diseases as well as encourage healthy behavior in future adult generations of our country. WOW educational inputs are aimed at achieving a visible impact among the waste management practices of children and those of their families, peer groups and the neighborhoods. Engagement in WOW action enables the school children to gain knowledge and behavioral change that increases their self pride and builds enormous potential of children acting as change agents for sustainable waste management which is an essential and integral component of sanitation and public health development.
Dr B. Janardhan Reddy, Commissioner of GHMC, explained that the main purpose of WOW Clubs is to build a citywide campaign to raise school children’s awareness on waste segregation and further engage them as change agents for practicing and spreading the awareness among their fellow students, peer group members, parents, family members and in the close by neighborhood areas. Children being the future citizenry of this nation, their awareness and motivation are pivotal for achieving Swachh Bharat and Swachh Hyderabad.
Depending on the strength of the school, each WoW club should be formed with 100 to 150 children and to be supported by a teacher as a facilitator. WOW club will take up one theme per month and try to improve the awareness levels of the students, visit nearby community and spread this awareness and corresponding practices among the residents. This process effectively contributes to enlightened community action to deal with an alarming problem of waste in a highly profitable manner.
Other dignitaries, including MLA Arekapudi Gandhi and Corporator Hameed Patel have emphasized on source segregation of waste into dry and wet waste so that the wet waste can be composted and dry waste can be sorted and fed into recycling chain.
Vadiraj Kulkarni (COO, ITC, elaborated on the CSR initiatives of ITC and stated that WOW is generating very high impact in sustainable management of waste, in 2016 alone 3500 tons of dry waste was collected and put into recycling process. With the support of ITC Blue and Green bib size dust bins were distributed to schools to promote wet and dry waste segregation in schools. This would benefit 2000 schools eventually.
The meeting concluded with a pledge taken by the gathering to sincerely share the responsibility of waste segregation and sanitation to achieve SWACHH Hyderabad. (NSS)