SHILLONG: On the occasion of its 75th anniversary on August 10, The Shillong Times is collaborating with government agencies, environmental groups and other stakeholders in a year-long cleaning drive of the major rivers and streams of Shillong, all of which ultimately flow into the Umiam Lake.
To give a fillip to this movement The Shillong Times has invited noted environmentalist from Mumbai, Afroz Shah, who is credited with removing 23 plus million kg of plastic and filth from the ocean, beaches, creeks, rivers, forests et al.
Shah will arrive in Shillong on Thursday to launch a clean-up drive of the Wah Umkhrah by tackling its upstream flow at Umkaliar near the once pristine Spread Eagles Falls.
School, college and university students, volunteers of the National Social Service Scheme (NSS), the National Cadet Corps, MakeSomeoneSmile, Green Volunteers Conclave, both environmental NGOs, and individuals with a concern for the environment will be converging at Umkaliar where the programme will start at 3pm.
The Shillong Times is partnering with St. Anthony’s College (RUSA) in this Clean Shillong initiative with the slogan, The Environment and I-We co-exist.
The Deputy Commissioner, East Khasi Hills, and the Shillong Municipal Board are two key stakeholders and are providing all assistance to ensure that the cleaning drive has the desired impact.
The idea of bringing Shah is to adapt the model of sustainability that he has put in ) place to ensure that the cleaning drive is sustained since he will have a long term engagement with this initiative for clean rivers.
On Friday, Shah will also be addressing the inaugural function of The Shillong Times Platinum Jubilee celebration at the U Soso Tham auditorium. At 3 pm the same day he will make a special presentation to college and university students at St. Anthony’s College auditorium.
Shah was honoured by the United Nations as the ‘Champion of the Earth’ for what it labelled as the “biggest beach clean-up in world history.” He is the first Indian to receive this highest UN Environment Award. Winners of this award include Al Gore, former Vice President of USA, and Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh among others.
After the major clean-up of the beaches in Mumbai, Shah has also started similar cleaning drives in Gujarat and Goa. He has been tackling marine litter by cleaning the rivers, beaches, ocean and mangroves for the past 188 weeks.
His model includes running mindset change ground action campaign in the coastal communities, stop littering, monetize plastic and get circular economy in people’s life and engaging school and college students to fight pollution.
Inspired by Afroz Shah & Community Cleanup, the UN launched a Global Clean Seas Campaign.
In Afroz’s words “The cleaning will continue till the ocean is made plastic and filth free.” He travels the world to speak on what he is most passionate about — cleaning up the ocean, seas and rivers.
