With cleanliness and hygiene becoming a growing concern in the country #BanegaSwachhIndia is aimed at spreading awareness about sanitation, empowering citizens with better hygiene and sanitation facilities across the country and working with partners to support ground interventions for construction and maintenance of toilets and driving behavioral change.
Supported by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan, this year the campaign’s #Mere10Guz initiative will focus on converting individual efforts to a greater collective community action
The event was held at the Dr. R.N. Cooper Municipal General Hospital, an institution that has gone beyond just caring for it patients. The hospital has worked towards ensuring the air, waste and land in their eco-system is pollution free with a sewage treatment plant, solar panels, waste management, vermicomposting pit and organic farming. They also teach children from nearby schools on how to manage their waste and use organic manure.
Among the many celebrities and personalities who supported the event in Mumbai and from Nagpur and Delhi with messages and their attendance were Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis; Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Shipping & Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation; Shweta Shalini, Advisor to Chief Minister of Maharashtra and Executive Director, Village Social Transformation Foundation; Naina Lal Kidwai, Chair, India Sanitation Coalition; Afroz Shah, Lawyer & Environmentalist; Bhagyashri Dengle, Executive Director, Plan India; Ravi Bhatnagar, Director, External Affairs & Partnerships, RB, AMESA and Kailash Satyarthi, Nobel Peace Laureate and Children’s Rights Activist.
The #BanegaSwachhIndia campaign continues to focus on SWACHH, i.e. Sanitation: end open defecation, Wash your hands regularly, Air pollution control, Cleanliness: Stop Littering, Health: Work for a healthy future, Hygienic India by 2019.
“We have achieved a lot in terms of improving the sanitation condition in the country. Through this campaign, we have created great awareness among people towards following safe sanitation practice and managing waste at source. With #Mere10Guz initiative season 5, I would like to encourage everyone in making India open defecation free with an aim to spread the message of Swachata.” Said Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan.
Gaurav Jain, SVP, RB AMESA Health said, “Dettol BSI has been successfully creating awareness and driving behavior change for the last four years. With each passing year, the program has been able to create a positive impact with community partnerships reaching out to a wider audience. We have covered 10,000 schools, across 7 states so far and our aim is to reach 2.5 lakh schools this year. The program has added a conservative estimate of $500,000 to the national economy by reducing the cost of diarrhea and there is a significant reduction (5%) in diarrhea cases among the exposed children.” He added, “Our focus for this year remains to drive behavior change with the collective effort of the community, better and effective involvement from people by encouraging and empowering individual contribution towards the larger cause.”
Also speaking at the event Vikram Chandra, who has been spearheading the #BanegaSwachhIndia campaign since its inception said, “To meet the goal of a Swachh India by 2019, we need to urgently find solutions to a number of mounting problems. We’d like to call on all state Chief Ministers to implement strict measures to curb air pollution. This year we will attempt to come up with a concrete action plan to find ways to deal with this crisis and will be proposing a suggested agenda they can follow.”
The campaign urges citizens to reach out to each other and help spread awareness; to follow the example set by children.
