| Go green this Diwali by saying ‘no’ to firecrackers |
26th Oct 2013
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School students join the campaign by saying no to crackers
iwali, is amongst the biggest Hindu festivals in India, and is associated with the lighting of crackers and fireworks. But this festival has bought forth certain important issues of concern to be addressed on a priority basis. The diminishing ozone layer, increasing global warming due to pollution, has made environmentalists worry about the addition of huge amounts carbon content to the atmosphere.
Several campaigns are launched every year to make people aware of the hazardous affects of crackers and urge people to celebrate Diwali in a greener way. Certain NGOs are engaged in promoting the recurring leitmotif of a green Diwali and working on making Chandigarh a smoke free city this year.
Yuvsatta, an NGO, has been working on environment-related issues for more than two decades now and promotes green Diwali. Pramod Sharma, coordinator, told Guardian20, "We spread the ground message that instead of lighting crackers and generating excess smoke and ash, we should tread a productive way. By adopting this simple yet unique way we can easily help reduce the production of crackers where several child labourers are employed."
Yuvsatta has roped in senior citizens, environmentalists and bureaucrats in their 'Campaign for Green Diwali' and also targets to cover 25-30,000 students in order to generate awareness.
"Diwali holds great significance for Hindus and reinforces our faith in the spirit of good over evil, but what all we receive in the aftermath is quite disturbing. The loud noise of crackers and the smoke emitted cause lot of air pollution. The noise leads to hearing impairment, high blood pressure, heart attacks and disturbed sleep whereas various accidents happen while igniting these crackers, leaving several people blind and severely burnt year after year," says Dr. Dharmveer, from the ENT Department, PGI.
Santosh Kumar, Director, Department of Environment, Chandigarh Administration who launched the Green Diwali Campaign said, "It's encouraging to see people mull over bursting firecrackers as negligent form of celebration nowadays. We must promote the traditional way of celebrating Diwali by decorating with lamps and people having fun with sparklers and less polluting firecrackers. But I am pleased that residents are coming forward to celebrate Diwali sans pollution."
Educating the literate masses is not a challenging task but the real challenge lies in educating those living in the rural areas, still, a few of them are bracing themselves up to take on this challenge with utmost zeal.
Narvijay Yadav, Founder President, Prakash Foundation charitable trust that works for empowering farmers and rural girl child, says, "We have been organising green Diwali camps in the rural areas to educate the illiterate about the hazardous affects of the smoke produced by the burning of crackers. Though our priority remains to empower the farmers and rural girl child but during these camps we emphasise on how to protect eyes, ear and health during Diwali."
"Working with special children is a different job and when the whole world around you celebrates Diwali with crackers it becomes a challenge for us to deal with them as leaving even one child unattended can be perilous. So we educate these children as our priority remains the safety of these children and the clean and green environment," claims Baljit Noor, Vice President Safe Hands Rehabilitation Society NGO.
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