The started early at 8 AM.. I briefed 30 kids from the 7th grade on safety measures (at the behest of the school) & spoke a little about the garbage problem in our city which was the reason we were going to the area behind the school to clean it up. Vinod Shetty from Acorn Intl was also there with 5 ragpickers who were introduced to the children. After distribution of latex as well as cotton gloves, surgical masks(!) garbage bags & armed with first aid kits, we set out to do the clean up.
Surprisingly, the kids got into the act immediately & didn’t mind getting their hands dirty. The 4 teachers were just as enthusiastic & by the end of 1 hour we had filled up about 20 large garbage bags. The audience of drivers, construction workers & other ragpickers were standing around stupefied watching the activity unfold. We then took the trash outside the school where the ragpickers segregated a small amount & gave us useful information on what could be recycled, the prices for the different types of plastic, metal, paper, milk packets, tetrapacks etc.( I got to learn a lot!)
We then broke up into various groups according to the activity chosen by the kids. Our group of Art From Waste comprised 10 kids & was the largest! Janjri & I had visited the school on the 14th of April to brainstorm ideas with the children. It was decided that they would do an installation of a man throwing trash into a bin. Janjri & Liz from CERE now discussed the execution of the sculpture according to the trash the kids had been collecting over the last week (a list of stuff had been sent by Janjri). Confusion reigned supreme as the students played cricket/handball with the trash but the clock was ticking & when they finally set to work, they did an amazing job. I marvel at the creativity of these kids. They came up with ideas for the actual sculpture which had definitely not occurred to Janjri, Liz or me. The teacher was non-interfering; she was around just to ensure that everyone got involved & that discipline was under control.
At the end of 2 hours, we had a fabulous sculpture. Boxes, empty mineral water bottles, toilet paper rolls, thermocol(or Styrofoam as they call it) made up the man named…oh he had a complicated 7 word name. A couple of boys intelligently strung together the water bottles & toilet paper rolls to make flexible arms & legs. Some girls came up with the idea of scrunching paper & sticking it to the head in an afro hair style. We then had to leave as the screening of the ‘Ragpickers’ film was to take place for all the groups. They quietly sat through although its a long film & had an interactive session with Vinod Shetty post the screening.
They then went back to the project, brought it down to the area outside the canteen & worked on assembling the different parts together. Liz had brought along paste to papier mache the entire model from head to toe with newspaper & magazines. The most interesting part followed… the presentation of all the activities. While we were doing our clean up, another group had gone to do a clean up of the mangroves. They made a brilliant song on the tune of ‘we will, we will rock you’ which was changed to ‘we will, we will save you’ & put the Rolling Stones to shame! Next the group that had filmed our walk & model making showed a film they had made complete with background music et al. Then the drama group put up a hilarious skit on trash at school. Our group then thanked Janjri, Liz & me as we had to leave, but I think another group was to read out the article they had written & the entire lot would then have been taken down to the canteen to see the installation.
I really have to say that it was a very rewarding day & despite the fact that I was there from 8am -3pm, I enjoyed every bit of it!
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