On Sunday October 27th, Nagalaxi madam, Ranjita madam and Paranjothi sir were there bright and early at 10.30 AM in Karuvelankadai village. This time, the FIN WASH+ (water, waste management, sanitation and hygiene behaviour) workshop for the children of the SOS Children’s Villages of India programme was held in the premises of the Aiyyannar temple. In the compound outside there was a lovely shade giving tree under which the children assembled. Some children were already there, and then slowly others began to trickle in and over the next hour, 22 children had assembled.
“The children were very well behaved. They arranged their chappals (i.e. foot wear) very neatly in a corner” noted Nagalaxmi madam.
Ranjita madam added, “The older children knew about hygiene behaviour. So these lessons seems to have been well learnt by the time children become adolescents. I am not sure this was case when I was their age,” which is revelatory about the general positive impact of the education efforts under Swachh Bharat Mission or Clean India Mission.
Paranjothi sir had another interesting story to tell us. “These children madam, are very intelligent. We were discussing about biodegradability and I told them that after a banana harvest, the trees are cut creating a lot of waste. For example, a banana stem takes about 3-4 months to become compost. I asked the kids – Can any of you tell me how to speed up the process?”
It seems that a boy immediately raised his hand, “Sir, I can answer that question! I will feed the cut banana tree to a cow and the cow will eat it and then it will give us cow dung – so with my method composting will be cut down to 1 day!”
So, as Paranjothi sir told me on the phone, “these kids may not know the term circular economy – but they know how to make it happen! And when we showed them the photos of the Tamil Nadu rivers with waste floating everywhere – they also agreed that it was not the way to be. So, we are on the right track with these WASH+ workshops making kids more aware of their responsibilities.”
And of course, the SOS Children’s Villages of India coordinators were also happy with the workshop!