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LAHORE, Feb 20: Around a hundred students of two elite educational institutions and

some two dozen or so children of a slum area volunteered on Sunday to make a portion of a

Lahore drain cleaner.

Belonging to opposite socio-economic groups, the volunteers were unanimous in protecting their

environment by keeping their surroundings free from garbage, especially the non-biodegradableone.

Motivated by a not-for-profit organisation, the Environment Protection Fund (EPF) under itsClean Green Project initiated the project with the assistance of the Lahore Waste Management

Company (LWMC)/Solid Waste Management wing of the City District Government along drain

from Basti Saidan Shah at Upper Mall up to The Mall.

Wapda Chairman Shakil Durrani was all praise for the children of Basti Saiden Shah while

lauding the zeal of the A-Level students of the Lahore Grammar School for Girls and

undergraduate boys of the National College of Business Administration and Economics.

Eight-year-old Saif of Basti Saiden Shah does not attend a school but don`t like shoppers(polythene bags) filled with stinking material lying in the streets while going to work in themorning. I like the clean streets there, he told Dawn while pointing towards the posh Upper

Mall locality.

Wearing disposable gloves, caps and special jackets provided by the LWMC and the EPF, Rahib

and Musa of Prep, Sariqa and Rahil of Nursery, Shoaib, Sawera and Shahzoon (Class I), Amman

and Adnan (Class II), Daanish and Aaina (Class III), Ubaid (Class IV) and Kainat (Class V)continued collecting solid waste lying on and along the banks of the drain passing through their

locality for four hours or so during a light rain.

Together with the LGS and NCB&E students besides some 30 CDGL employees, they filled

several bags which were loaded in three trucks for disposal at the dumping sites, saidLWMC/SWM Assistant Director (Model Roads) Chaudhry Aslam.

Sana and Meher of LGS spearheaded their fellows in collecting non-biodegradable solid waste.

The real threat to our environment is polythene bags as they contaminate underground water,

said Meher. They collected 17 trash bags also with broken glass and crockery besides usedblades and razors.

Aleena Rashid termed the activity beginning of an environment revolution while Alizah Shahwas a bit annoyed with the people who throw garbage on streets and roads. Hadia Mansoor was

there to create awareness, Amina Malik for contributing to minimise pollution while Amber and

Fajar were concerned why environment was not priority of the authorities.

Asad and Saud Jamil of the NCB&E were optimistic that more youth would join hands with

them to make society better.

EPF founder Zar Aslam said the fund strategy had been to bring about a social change through

advocacy, awareness and lobbying for change in government policy at the federal and provincial

levels, so that 48 hours of community service in educational institutions could be mademandatory.

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These hours could be completed in four-hour slots and students might be awarded numbers for

the same, she said.