On 13 February 2016, the Citizenship Programme, in collaboration with the citizen- volunteers’ group, New Delhi Rising, undertook yet another SPOT FIX beneath the Lajpat Nagar Flyover. Our young volunteers were Sidaqdeep, Krithi, Gunraj, Anoushka, and Dhariya (Class 8). Ms. Darshana, Ms. Shalini Sehgal and Coordinator, Ms. Sangeeta Aswani accompanied them.
A spot fix on a part of the pillars was done on 6th February, and we now set out to make a difference to another two pillars. Hindustan Times had featured an article on our effort on 10th February titled “ Kids wield brooms to fix spot at Lajpat Nagar” giving us great coverage and appreciation.
The pillars had been vandalised with posters. At 9.30 am, the children reported and quickly divided the work area amongst themselves. They started scraping off / the posters with the brushes and cleaning up the areas that had been vandalised by random posters and garbage. While the children were working, we were delighted to see the Deputy CM of Delhi, Mr. Manish Sisodia stop and alight from his car! He walked up towards the children and enquired about what they were doing. He was on his way to a meeting and our children had caught his attention, he said! We explained our Citizenship Programme mission to him and explained that we were cleaning and painting public spaces as part of good citizenship. We also walked him around the other spots we had cleaned during the past week. He was very impressed and almost at a loss for words to express how overwhelmed he felt about our concern for public property. In fact, he asked one of our students to show him how to clean and even tried a hand at “spotfixing”!
Not only this, Mr. Sisodia bowled us over when he spontaneously extended an invitation to us to have breakfast with him at his residence the next morning. He was eager to discuss how to take this initiative ahead, he said. It was indeed a memorable moment for the Citizenship Programme to receive acclaim from the Deputy CM of Delhi himself!
After taking some photographs with the children, Mr Sisodia left and the children promptly got back to work with a renewed motivation. They applied a fresh coat of white paint to the pillars for clean and fresh look and when dry, they enlivened the space by painting an attractive patterned design to complement the earlier work done on the opposite side. After over 2 hours, we wrapped up for the day feeling good that we had managed to make a difference to such a prime space, with another two pillars now sporting a new look.
The children returned home very eager excited about having met Mr Sisodia and also about going over for breakfast with him the next morning.
Ms. Sangeeta Aswani, Citizenship- Coordinator.
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