While most of the city was just about starting a calm and peaceful Sunday morning, a group of youngsters got ready at the crack of dawn with brooms and dustpans. The members of ‘Maatralaam’, a city-based youth organisation, organised a clean-up of the streets around Sri Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple here.
Speaking about the initiative, G. Sriraman, one of the founders of the organisation, said that they wanted to focus on cleanliness around the temple which was a world renowned tourist site and one of the city’s most important landmarks.
“As the first initiative of our organisation, we decided to embark on a cleanliness drive which would inspire people to come forward and help keep their surroundings clean as well. The Corporation extended its support and encouraged us to take up the clean-up drive,” he explained. M. Pradeepa, a city-based software engineer and a founder of ‘Maatralaam’, said that they were joined by nearly 35 volunteers. “From students of class XII to teachers and professionals, most of the volunteers joined us after seeing a post on Facebook. They were very enthusiastic and we expect more support for such future initiatives as people are rearing to contribute towards helping their city progress,” she said.
The clean-up, which began at 6.30 a.m., lasted for nearly two hours. “While the streets around the temple were relatively clean, we found a lot of dust, mud, used plastic cups and wrappers on the roads. We hope to place dustbins, specially for plastic waste, in such public spots in the future so that they can be recycled,” Mr. Sriraman said.
The members of ‘Maatralaam’ further said that they hoped to carry out more clean-up drives through the city.
“We are also planning to conduct traffic awareness campaigns and stress the importance of wearing helmets and avoiding drunk driving,” they said.
