Shillong, Nov 16: Project Clean Surrounding, the brainchild of Jefferson Kynjing, recently collaborated with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change for a cleaning drive in the city.
The drive was part of a central initiative of Mission LiFE, or Lifestyle For Environment. “LiFE puts individual and collective duty on everyone to live a life that is in tune with Earth and does not harm it. Those who practice such a lifestyle are recognised as Pro Planet People under LiFE,” says the website of the Government of India. The mission is in line with the United Nations’ sustainability goals and intends to bring about change at the grassroots level.
Kynjing, while speaking to Meghalaya Monitor, said Project Clean Surrounding has been chosen as the local NGO partner for Mission LiFE and the latter is spreading awareness by distributing car stickers, organising river cleaning and distributing composting bins.
“This is the first time that we collaborated with the Centre. So far, we have been running cleaning drives and regular locality cleaning all by ourselves. It was a great experience that the Ministry chose us. We have already distributed composting bins and the households will return the compost to us so that we can make the manure and sell it in the market,” said Kynjing, whose initiative has helped change the lives of many economically backward families.
Kynjing informed that several programmes, such as environmental awareness in schools, plantation of saplings and recycling of old articles will be introduced as part of Mission LiFE.
Imtila Ao, the regional director of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, said LiFE, which stands for lifestyle for environment, is an India-led global mission that promotes a way of living in consonance with the environment.
“What is different (about the mission) is that for the first time the focus is on individuals playing their roles in reversing climate change… Among other things, we are also promoting use of steel water bottles as plastic bottles are choking water bodies everywhere,” she added.
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