The bright artworks on the outer side of the compound wall at this CBSE school on CTH Road, near Ambattur Old Town West, is not just an isolated exercise in creativity. It’s part of a larger exercise to prevent people from dirtying walls.
P. N. Deepak Ram, a class XII student of G. K. Shetty Vivekananda Vidyalaya Junior College, decided to do something about the sad state of the compound wall at his school.
“With posters and pamphlets pasted on them, the school wall had become unseemly,” says Deepak who decided to spruce up the walls himself.
The school management was happy when Deepak suggested that student-volunteers can be roped in to beautify the wall as they also have been thinking of clearing all the bills stuck on the wall.
“We were planning to hire workers to spruce up the wall when Deepak came up with the idea,” says Usharani, principal of the school.
Expecting a good number of participants for the painting event, the school conducted a painting competition where they shortlisted students across classes based on their works.
Fifteen students from classes VI to XII were part of the exercise, which witnessed the painting of many environmental-friendly messages.
Over 10 panels, each bearing a student’s name and class, have been marked below the drawings.
Deepak too was put through a test.
“Not many of the teachers know that I was good at drawing; so, I was given a wall near the staircase to paint,” Deepak says, adding that he is grateful to his biology teacher Deepa for guiding him.
This is not the first time that Deepak has volunteered to beautify a wall. He volunteers for Pasumai Avadi, a group that has spruced up the Avadi bus stop and Avadi railway station with art based on environment-friendly themes.
The students have won appreciation from residents and passersby for “their wall of ideas”.
Tamilnadu Forest Department gifted each of them with a sapling.
