I am an English subject teacher at Upper Primary School from a Balhera village of Akola block of Agra district. There is enrolment of around 590 students who are studying in grades 1 to 8 study in our school. I came to know from the trainers of DIET Agra about this national level sustainability education – wipro earthian – Paryavaran Mitra programme in 2020. It was covid times, so I joined the online training workshop organized by CEE. I felt that this is exactly the programme, we needed in our school. I decided to work on the theme of sustainability and waste because it was closely connected to the situation in the village.
Our school is participating in this programme from past 3 years. After participating in this programme, I have observed that it has helped the students to develop an understanding of the theme and multiple perspectives. Activities have provided opportunity to engage students to learn and explore their local environment and build knowledge, commitment and potential to meet the challenges of sustainability in their own spheres of influence.
This programme has not only equipped me as a teacher with new teaching tools and techniques but has been joyful for students. As a result, in our school on Saturdays we organise various activities like group discussions, competitions like essay, drawing, quiz, best out of waste and various other activities which promotes them to explore and act in academics and environment as well. Activities during assembly filled the students with great confidence and knowledge where students implement the knowledge in their day-to-day life.
Students learnt concepts and used it in spreading awareness among the villagers through Nukkad – Natak on ‘Swachta’, door-to-door communication, plays on waste segregation etc This knowledge reached among thousands of people directly or indirectly with the help of campaigns, mass media, social media and you tube channel of school.
An interesting incidence took place during the door-to-door awareness campaign when an elderly lady (Amma) asked about their profit as it seem to her that government is paying some allowances to teachers and students for that task. Well by the end, we succeeded to make her and neighbours to understand the significance of sustainability and waste. Around after 20 days when we encountered that lady again, we were much delighted to see her and others making compost from the kitchen waste. Such positive handprint action stories have filled both students and teachers with zeal and enthusiasm. We received state level recognizing for our work from in 2022. I am looking forward to taking our efforts ahead with students.
