School chairman interacts on Swachhta

On 7 November, 2017, the students of classes 6 and 7 had an interactive session with School chairman, Mr. Prafull Goradia on the subject of Cleanliness and the Swachha Bharat Abhiyaan.

To start the discussion, students of class 7 introduced the audience to the various aspects of the government campaign. They explained the various parameters of the Abhiyaan. A student read out a self- composed poem on the project after which Mr. Goradia spoke.

Sir started by sharing with us an interesting fact to ponder about. He said that we Indians are amongst the most hygienic citizens of the world. He explained that Indians feel unclean without a bath for even a single day! On the other hand, Europeans consider bathing a luxury and mostly bathe very infrequently. He shared his personal experiences from his early days in France and London, where it was a luxury in those times to be allowed to have a bath. He gave the example of the Palace of Versailles which has 400 rooms but not baths!

Mr. Goradia advised us to constantly stay hygienic and clean. He said that dirt and filth can cause epidemics. He gave us examples of The Great Plague of London and The Plague of Hong Kong.

Mr. Goradia shared several examples to spread awareness amongst students. He spoke of how the fear of the plague got the filthy streets of Surat clean. Perhaps fear should be used as a tool for the Swachh Bharat Mission as well?

Here I would like to add the achievements and initiatives taken by our School to contribute to keeping our city clean. As a part of our prestigious Citizenship Programme, our students cleaned up a part of the filth on the Yamuna banks. From time to time, we clean vandalised spots in our neighbourhood like Defence Colony Market and the Moolchand flyover. We also distributed painted paper bags to shop owners in the vicinity so that they could replace plastic ones.

It was indeed an educative talk with Goradia sir and we enjoyed interacting with him. The talk was a good step to creating awareness among middle school students on this vital matter.

Ananya Sunderesan VIIE.