Chandigarh
5 June 2022
DIVYA AZAD
On the occasion of World Environment Day, Department of Environment, Chandigarh Administration along with Eco Club of GGDSD College & Yuvsatta-NGO, organized at GGDSD College, an award ceremony with eight schools and three prominent colleges winning the Best Eco Club Awards for year 2021. On the occasion, the Chief Guest Sh. Debendra Dalai, Director, Department of Environment, also launched a Pen-Up campaign motivating people to discard their gel and ball pens and switch to sustainable fountain pens.
In his welcome address, Ajay Sharma, Principal of GGDSD College shared about a ‘Pen Change’ campaign of their college, in which they have kept beautiful boxes at many places in their campus for students to discard their ball-pens. The main objective of the initiative is to fight against the use of ball/gel pens as they are made of plastics and are as bad as plastic bags and bottles.
Appreciating the wonderful work done by Eco Clubs in local schools and colleges Sh. Debendra Dalai said that the 2022 World Environment Day theme of ‘Only One Earth’ calls for collective, transformative action to celebrate, protect and restore our planet. As they say they think global and act local, Chandigarh is a good example of the same as instead of losing green spaces, as is the norm in most developing cities, Chandigarh in fact managed to increase its green cover to over 50%. People here whole heartedly come forward to support any environmental initiative be it promotion of renewable energy, especially solar power, maintaining cleanliness or curbing the pollution. Similarly, we all have to proactively participate to phase-out the use of single use plastics from the city. In which, educational institutions have a big role to play by preparing young students as changemakers.
Launching the Pen-Up campaign Sh. Debendra Dalai shared that millions of ball pens end up in our landfills as these cannot be easily recycled. Thus, the Pen -Up campaign aims to target this throw away culture and plastic pollution at one go. We need to bring people back to using comparatively eco-friendly fountain pens, which can become digital detox and turning people back to the art of handwriting.
The winner principals of Best Club Awards who were honoured with beautiful trophies, merit certificates and rupees fifteen thousand each for Eco Club activities included;
In High & Sr. Sec. School Category: Sr. Mary Supreeta A.C., Carmel Convent School, Mrs. Seema Rani, Govt. Model Sr. Sec. School, Dhanas, Mrs. Anuja Sharma, DAV Model School, Mrs. Anuradha Gupta, Govt. Model High School, Sector 22-C & Regy Joseph (Sister Arti), Sacred Heart Senior Secondary School, Sector 26, Chandigarh.
Primary & Middle School Category: Mrs. Soma Mukhopadhyay, Bhavan Vidyalaya Jr., Ms. Anupam Grewal, Kids ‘R’ Kids School & Mr. Rajinder Kumar, Govt. Middle School, Sector 33-B, Chandigarh.
Colleges Category: Dr. Nisha Bhargava, Mehr Chand Mahajan D.A.V. for Women, Dr. Navjot Kaur, Sri Guru Gobind Singh College & Prof. Nisha Aggarwal, Post Graduate Govt. College for Girls, Sector-42, Chandigarh.
The programme ended with a short play ‘Only One Earth’ by students of St. Joseph’s Sr. Sec. School, Chandigarh.
