Youngsters take charge: Your Area dirty? call us!

It all started with a persistent pile of garbage outside Amith's house in Banashankari. His neighbours had complained repeatedly, but, as is usually the case, there was no response. One weekend, Amith and his cousins decided they had had enough. They spent the day cleaning up the mess. Amith found this so satisfying that he decided to keep the enthusiasm going. “What started out as a family affair became a full blown organisation. It was a random conversation that turned out to be a really good idea!” says Amith with a laugh.

He spoke to a friend, Anup, who seemed just as excited by it. Together, they founded Youth for Parivarthan, a youth-based organisation that makes Bengaluru beautiful – the board members are between 20 and 23 years of age. At first, the idea was just to give back to society in some way, but visiting orphanages seemed too commonplace. “There were a lot of people doing that already, but the city really needed a good cleaning. So that's what we decided to do,” Amith explained.

Now, this was before the Swachh Bharat campaign garnered nationwide interest and the group's founding members had a quite a time enthusing other people. "We approached the BBMP, but they were quite dismissive of us then. They thought we were just unemployed kids who had nothing better to do with their time!" he said. "When the Swachh Bharath Abhiyan started, the Palike sat up and took notice of us."

Simply clearing the garbage in an area wasn't enough, "The mentality is that if one person dumps, the second person thinks it's okay to do so as well. But if you transform the area, nobody feels like spoiling it." The team arrives at the spot bright and early to clear garbage, sweep and of course, pull down the posters that Bengaluru is so famous for. "Of course, we paint all the walls, that's the most fun part of cleaning up a place," he said. They also have a couple of members with an inclination for art, so the painting work produces a good bit of creativity as well. "Art really helps transform a place and we happen to have people who are very good at it," he said. They also place potted plants in the area before they go.

Maintenance, however, has proved out of their reach. "We can go to a place and make it look good, but maintaining it after that is up to the residents. We're all students at the end of the day, and there is only so much we can do." The working committee comes up with locations for the group to visit next – sometimes, these come through public referrals as well. "So far, residents have done their bit to keep it going, except for a couple of areas," he added.

Garbage that is swept up needs to be taken away and this is where the BBMP steps in. "They send garbage trucks to pick up the trash from time to time," said Amith. When this doesn't happen, Youth for Parivarthan organises its own transport, which, as one would imagine, needs fairly deep pockets. “It varies with the amount of garbage and is usually about Rs 6,000 per load. If we're covering a larger area, it goes up to Rs 12,000," said Amith. At first, it was Amith and his friends pooling in money to get the job done, but when their work began to get noticed, the public pooled in. "Now, we have another method. Those who want to become members of the organisation are asked to pay an annual fee of Rs 100,” he added. Nobody is forced into paying this money and those who don't want to be members, can continue for free as volunteers.

They have been getting a lot of attention from corporate companies in the area, most of whom want to do something but need an NGO to facilitate the process. "They send us to spots and help us out. They also recommend schools we can visit to engage with students."

The Banashankari BDA complex was one of the toughest jobs they took on, because of its sheer size, said Amith, as he recalled some of their most trying tasks. "It took us 26 hours to complete and we worked at a stretch until we finished it." On an average, a spot takes about seven hours to complete. "The worst place we visited was DVG Park in Banashankari 2nd Stage," he said. "There was an open drain covered with leaves and all kinds of trash." This job required covering the open sections of the drain with stone slabs and clearing it of all the rubbish as well.

Amith hopes to slowly expand the organisation’s reach to Central Bengaluru and then to the North. “Central Bengaluru is quite tricky, we can’t do things like pull down posters, because they have been put up by major Kannada organisations and we don’t want to be at loggerheads with them,” he said. All events, meanwhile, are publicised through Facebook, so more people show up to help. “We start even if there are only two members,” he said. This enthusiasm has been countered with a fair amount of cynicism, which Amith says comes mainly from senior citizens. “They tell us that things will go back to normal the day after we are done cleaning,” he said. “We don’t give up, though, or things will never get done. Our motto is very simply – stop complaining and start acting!”