Bengaluru: There’s a lot that rural visits and outreach programmes can do for college students. Organising a 10-km run towards water conservation is a result of that, said Prof. Kiran Jeevan, Staff Co-ordinator of Wildlife Awareness and Conservation Club (WACC) and PRO at St Joseph’s College.
The student members of WACC at the college have joined hands with concerned citizens and like-minded organisations of the city to organise a ‘Neer-athon’ in the city on January 21.
The event upholds the necessity to educate the youth on efficient ways to conserve and use water, equip them to salvage depleting lakes and drying basins. Supporting the initiative is Dr Ayyappa Masagi, popularily known as ‘Water Gandhi’ for his noteworthy contribution of constructing more than 700 lakes, told Deccan Chronicle, “Such an initiative taking form student brains itself shows how the younger generations have thought for the environment.
When young minds are brought together under the same umbrella, this would turn into a motivation for future water warriors and thoughtful farmers as well.”
He added that the attitude towards such concerns across levels – community, bureaucracy and the government, is the major constraint that we need to overcome to popularise innovative solutions to the issue.
“Tree-based agriculture, non-irrigation agriculture, compartment bunding and such should make their way towards the farming community, encouraging them to continue their work and bring down suicides,” he added.
The organisers have decided to use the profits generated through the event to set up rain water harvesting projects in schools and villages located in and around rural Bengaluru and the state, looking forward to partner with NGOs and like-minded groups to further enhance the reach.
“Rather than blaming each other on the vexatious issue of water scarcity, we decided to take a step forward to motivate ourselves and our cou terparts towards creating a sustainable environment,” said Chandan S, President of WACC, SJC.
“Neer-athon is organised as part of our year-long campaign towards attaining the set Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the institution, which revolves around different facets of environmental protection, without neglecting that climate change is a reality, to create a motivated youth force towards bettering our resources,” Prof. Jeevan said.
