March 2016 Report
CMS Environment Coordinators’ Meeting held on
Wednesday, 30 March 2016 at 12:30 PM
Venue: Board Room, 4th Floor, President’s Office, CMS, 11 Station Road.
A monthly review meeting of all CMS Environment Coordinators was held on Wednesday, 30thMarch 2016. Mr. V.N. Garg, Director-Policy and Operations chaired and guided the discussions on the theme of Air Pollution. This session was extremely fruitful.
Following are the highlights of the meeting.
- Report from Eco Club members of Rajajipuram Campus I and Rajajipuram Campuses II & coordinators on activities and plan of action for the quarter of April-June 2016:
Eco club members of Rajajipuram-I campus, gave updates about the environment activities conducted in their campus in February and March. They have 60 members in their eco club.
- They celebrated all the International Environment Days of March like World Sparrow Day, World Water Day etc. and pledged to conserve water.
- They made organic colors for holi.
- They carried out bio-diversity project of Wipro Earthian programme.
- They will be celebrating World Heritage Day on 18th April. They are making posters and other arrangements for it.
- Rajajipuram-I has been declared as ‘Polythene Free Zone’.
- Made posters on air pollution promoting the checking of vehicles for emissions, stopping the use of polythenes.
Eco club members of Rajajipuram-II campus (Shreya Kakkar and Ananya Agrawal)
- Distributed saplings to promote awareness about importance of tree plantation.
- Planted maximum number of plants and trees as possible.
- Prepared soft boards and posters about various international days of March.
- Awareness about not using soft drink bottles for drinking water.
- Made rakhis and tied it to trees to show the importance of trees in the environment and in our lives.
- Wrote articles on air pollution, performed skits.
- 1-minute report of activities from Environment Coordinators for months of February and March, 2016
- All campuses celebrated International Days of February and March 2016.
- Many of the campuses took an initiative to promote awareness about ‘Air Pollution’ by starting a Signature Campaign, by involving parents and family members of students, projects on air pollution , moral classes used for air pollution projects, etc.
- Discussion on Air Pollution/Social Action Project
- Mr. V.N. Garg stressed upon the serious topic of growing air pollution in the city. Focusing upon the statistics given by Prof. Roger Kingdon in the last meeting on 30-1-16 in which the most polluted top 20 cities of world has maximum number of cities of India and that too from Uttar Pradesh, he reminded us that Lucknow holds the 10th rank, our children and senior citizens are the most affected ones from this growing air pollution.
- He suggested starting a SIGNATURE CAMPAIGN involving our 52000 students so that it can be reached out to lot more and have impact with the concerned government ministry and policy makers.
- He also requested the coordinators to start doing small projects on raising awareness on Air Pollution.
- All circulars related to environment should be read and followed by environment coordinators, he said.
- By controlling air pollution, we help environment in many other ways too.
- Anti-Pollution masks are not purchased in any of the campuses.
- He asked to take Air Pollution as a challenge and prove that youths are capable enough of bringing a change in the society and they should not be forced. Youth should be made to feel the problems and feel the need of bringing the change.
- Mrs. Farida Vahedi requested the coordinators to revisit the material which they had received in meeting held in June last year on Environmental Issues which highlighted the need for starting a project within the school and in neighbourhoods.
Station Road and Rajendra Nagar II requested for the material which will be sent to them through DAK.
- She appreciated the project of Anand Nagar campus which they had undertaken at the time of Environment Olympiad, relating to SMOG. UN Information Center’s Report had a photograph of the soft board of this project of Anand Nagar campus.
- Mrs. Vahedi suggested that ‘Questionnaire’ can be really effective and can be used for raising awareness on Air Pollution amongst the people. Hence she requested all the coordinators to prepare a questionnaire in consultation with Eco club members and send them to office by 15th April,2016
SUGGESTIONS:-
- Adding a new dimension to street play about Air Pollution
- Throughout the session, moral classes and other ways should be used to raise awareness on the topic.
- Experts on the topic can be called for spreading awareness
- Coordinators should be trained by experts so that they can spread it further in a more efficient way. To think of a date before closure for the summer vacation for organizing such a training. To also use the remaining of the material on Environmental Issues for the completion of this task.
- As the coordinators don’t receive the circulars, they suggested that the circulars should also be emailed to them.
- Copies of the circulars were made available to each coordinator as part of the meeting kit. The coordinators were urged to study them with eco club members.
- Subscription of Environment Magazines e.g. Down To Earth/Terra Green
All the coordinators are receiving a copy of Terra Green; Mrs Vahedi requested them to subscribe for Down To Earth as well.
- Young Reporters for the Environment (YRE) India 2016.
Discussed and coordinators will take care of it.
- IGBC Green School Certification of CMS School buildings.
Discussed and coordinators will consult with their Respected Principals and will let us know the response. They also requested if Mr. Dwivedi could be invited to explain the letter that he had sent about certification to the coordinators. To do so for the next meeting.
- International Environmental Days to be observed:
- World Health Day(April 7)
- World Heritage Day(April 18)
- Earth day(April 22)
- International Day of Biological Diversity(May 22)
- World Environment Day(June 5)
Office would also prepare articles on these topics. Coordinators were encouraged to opt for an event on 5th June if possible. Campuses could organize that jointly since it is summer holiday time.
- Other points discussed:
- Deadline for submitting PLAN OF ACTION is 15th April, 2016. All coordinators are requested to submit their plan of action by this date.
- Felicitation Programme ‘SAMAGAM’ organized by Ms. Anuradha Gupta is tentatively planned on 22nd April, 2016 at Regional Science City. Information regarding this is to be shared with all the coordinators.
- Mrs. Vahedi requested all the coordinators to timely mail their reports and photographs to Mr. Suresh for the updation on website and facebook page.
- Date to be finalized for study on material ‘Environmental Issues’.
- Coordinators are requested to plan something for World Environment Day on 5th June.