Duration : 17 Sep’23 to 20 Feb’24

Community Cleanup was a new experience for me. While I had always heard about it and wished to contribute to such events, I never really ended up participating and hence the CAS served as a perfect opportunity to try my hands and something meaningful like this. During our cleanup drives, we visited different locations such as ponds and riverfront wherein under the guidance of a mentor we collected waste from that area. During our first session, we were taken to a pond which was covered with Duckweed and our task was to clean a patch of pond. While the mentor explained to us about how the duckweed impacted the pond ecosystem, I was able to draw connections with my ESS subject learning wherein we had discussed about eutrophication and fertilizer run-off. It came to us as a shock when we were told that some of us would have to get in the pond in order to clean it, there was a lot of resistance from our side and I was definitely not willing to get myself dirty in the pond water. Nonetheless, some of us decided to go inside and I along with others assisted them to clear out the duckweed. At the end of the drive, I felt a sense of accomplishment looking at the now cleared pond. During our drives, I noticed a lot of people looking at us with suspicious eyes and some of them even asked us why we were doing this drive. 

LO2 – Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills 

It was a challenge for me to show up for the drive sessions as it required me to come early in the morning. Our drives were around 2 hours long and not having this done before after around an hour I used to find myself exhausted, losing motivation to continue with the cleanup due to the heat. In order to overcome this challenge, I used to take 5 minutes of rest, recollect my energy and continue with the drive with a thought in mind to give back to the environment. While I haven’t learnt any new technical skills, I was able to develop my physical endurance as my body was constantly engaged in bending and lifting objects and also working on difficult terrains such as inclined slops. 

LO4 – Show perseverance and commitment in CAS experience 

The primary commitment required to complete this activity was to actively participate in the cleanup, while I have always shown commitment to my tasks, it was a little difficult here. There were times when I felt like skipping the sessions or didn’t feel motivated enough to participate, however at such times I reminded myself of the small yet positive impact that my action shall have on the environment. At the location, I gave my best to clean the location and collect as much as waste possible. 

LO 5 – Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively 

We divided ourselves into groups and allocated sections of the location, this way we were able to effectively clean the entire location within around 2 hours. During one of our cleanup drives, we collected plastic waste and gave it to Ecovision – waste management service, the plastic waste was later taken to their facility and recycled. This collaboration exemplifies how different stakeholders in a community can join together to create change. 

LO6 – Engagement with issues of global significance

As an individual I believe in the fact that smallest actions can create ripples of change, especially when they’re rooted in local engagement. Our community cleanup activity addressed the global issue of environmental degradation. While picking up the litter, I came across a lot of plastic based products such as bottles, polythene bags, caps, etc. Through our cleanup efforts, we have directly contributed to cleaning our local environment and mitigate the impacts of plastic pollution. This has been an intersection of local action and global engagement, it is our collective responsibility to ensure that we keep our surroundings clean.