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CAMPAIGNS
Community awareness and community action is the key to the ecological restoration of the health of the river. Informed awareness of the state of pollution in Ganga and an understanding of how each one of us can contribute towards reducing the pollution load which ultimately finds its way into the river is missing. Quite often one finds people holding the government and the industries responsible for the pollution in the river while ignoring in the same breadth their own duties and responsibilities.
Unplanned urbanization in India together with the population explosion has led to perhaps the most complete breakdown in civic conditions everywhere. Repulsive sights of garbage dumps, blocked and overflowing drains, and roads littered with all kinds of waster materials and the conspicuous polythene bags are found everywhere. Due to the pathetic condition of the Ghats it has become extremely difficult now to even visit the river without some religious compulsion.
Eco Friends believes that until each one of us realizes that all of us are to varying degrees responsible for the mess we find ourselves in, improvements are not possible.
Education and awareness campaigns are one means for reaching out to the masses about the urgency of taking remedial steps to protect the river. Year round rallies, sit ins, peaceful demonstrations, lectures at governmental and non governmental
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institutions on protecting the river are being organized. In all this, Eco Friends is aided by the whole hearted support given to it by schools and other concerned institutions such as the National Cadet Corp, the Police Departments and so on.
Bi Annual Ganga Clean up
Eco-Friends has achieved notable success in stopping to a considerable extent, age old practice of dead body dumping into the river. As is known, many a times half burnt, unburnt dead bodies, animal carcasses, worship materials such as clay idols, floral offerings, account books and polythene bags find their way into the river. Sometimes, unclaimed dead bodies are also dumped into Ganga. River cleaning physically by volunteers of Eco Friends and fishing out of more than a hundred dead bodies in 1997, dramatically woke up the citizens to this abhorrent practice. Sine then, Ganga cleaning has been a regular feature of the activities of Eco Friends. It is now done twice a year during the lean periods. Over the years, there has been a visible change in this practice. Still the task of eliminating these abhorrent practices, which are extremely harmful to the ecological health of the river, is unfinished. The river continues to be treated as a natural sewer, a garbage dump, a morgue and more. The Ganga Clean up programme is a concrete step in the direction of working towards a clean river.
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AWARENESS PROGRAMMES, RALLIES, DEMONSTRATIONS
Eco Friends has started a drive to educate students in various schools and colleges about the plight of Ganga and the urgent need to heed the call of the distressed river.
As a part of this programme, Eco Friends team addresses school and college students regularly on different aspects of pollution and also invites the students to share their ideas on stopping and reversing pollution in the river. This drive is an ongoing programme and all schools and colleges at Kanpur are proposed to be covered in the programme.
Employees of Governmental institutions, private organisations, different clubs based at Kanpur are also being sensitized.
Eco Friends and No. 3, UP, Air Squadron NCC have jointly started a series of activities focusing on generating mass awareness about critical issues of environmental degradation amongst the students of various schools and colleges in and around Kanpur. Facilitating effective action on stopping further pollution of the Ganga is the key focus of the activities. A rally of around 400 students drawn from different schools and colleges of Kanpur and adjoining areas was taken out to intensify the programme of generating mass awareness and action on the issue of stopping and reversing pollution in the Ganga.
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