Students from around 150 schools in the city have pledged to play dry, eco-friendly Holi this year.
An initiative — started by the Sanskar India Foundation, a non-profit organisation — allows students to make their own dry eco-friendly Holi colours in their schools. The students have also pledged to not use artificial colours and water.
"The idea is to motivate students to make the most out of this festival without using artificial colours. While several students were already making natural colours in water, this year we decided to make dry colours so that no water is wasted in the process and the festival is celebrated in the most eco-friendly way," said Kiran Madan, founder and director, Sanskar India foundation.
The initiative was successfully conducted across several municipal and private schools in the city. Workshops were organised in schools to train students to make eco-friendly colours. "Instead of telling them to not play Holi, we told them the importance of playing dry Holi with organic colours which we make from kitchen ingredients like beetroot, cornflour, etc," added Madan.
Ekta Shah, Rotary coordinator at the GK Marg municipal school in Lower Parel, said that it was indeed a learning experience for students.
"Students were happy to make the colours which almost looked like those available in markets without having to take the risk of using artificial ingredients and paying for them," added Shah.
Several schools including Navy children's school and Campion school were also a part of the initiative. "Students really enjoyed the whole process and played dry Holi in the school", said Mallika Subramanian, Principal, Navy Children's school, Colaba.
