If the efforts of a few schools in the city pay off, this Diwali might be quieter with many of them launching a ‘Noiseless Diwali’ campaign on their campuses. The crux of the campaign is to urge students to steer clear of noisy firecrackers.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

At Vidya Valley School in Pashan, principal Nalini Sengupta said she has arranged many activities on the theme of pollution-free Diwali to ensure students do not burn firecrackers.

“We believe in catching students young to teach life values and had we not done this, it would have been an opportunity lost. In fact, some students came up to me and requested me not to burn firecrackers as it disturbs senior citizens and animals. I was moved to see them do it and decided to take up it as an activity as this is an important message for students,” she said.

As part of the activity, students of standard VI and VII participated in contests on writing slogans and making posters, which have been put up on display. “Now we have a special assembly by students from the 1st to the 5th who will address senior students making a request for a noiseless Diwali,” she said.

At Ahilyadevi High School for Girls, principal Tillotama Reddy said this would be the second consecutive year that the school had appealed for a noiseless Diwali. “Last year, members of NGO Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti came to our school to raise awareness and distributed pamphlets. Students came to us later and said they didn’t burn firecrackers or burnt less noisy ones.

Encouraged by the response, we repeated the activity this year and sent notes to parents about this,” she said.

Reddy added that the school conducted awareness workshops by teachers and distributed pamphlets asking students to either spend less on firecrackers or give money to orphanages instead of increasing sound pollution.

Most schools said that they wanted to do activities on a larger scale, but were prevented due to the ongoing exams. “We have also told our students about making this Diwali less noisy by bursting fireworks that make less noise. But most of our activities were limited to the classroom and we couldn’t do large scale activity as exams are going on.

“As soon as they get over, we break for vacations. So we have tried our best by talking to students and sending notes to their parents,” said Sujata Mallic Kumar, principal of St Mary’s School.