From classrooms to real world

They plan to adopt an Indian village with over 500 families. Driven by aspirations and a desire to change, the students presented their ideas to a teacher before boarding a flight to Tamil Nadu and deciding to partner with the DHAN Foundation, a non-government organisation (NGO).

“Sanitation is a major issue in small villages because it is the main cause of health complications. We want to begin with the cleaning up of water resources in the area and then look into supporting small-scale businesses in the area,” says Indrajit Viswanath who started the project as part of his environment studies class. The group of students, Indrajit, Shreyas Shekhar, Anant Goel and Mayank Mathur returned from their assessment visit of the village with documented evidence of sanitation and hygiene issues and started working on a plan of action to work with the NGO by providing resources.

“There are no latrines, no drainage pipes and no access to clean water. People collect water for domestic purposes from an unclean ‘Oorni’ (a small pond) to complete all their household chores,” added Indrajit. With a high prevalence of water-borne diseases in the village, the students have dedicated part of their classroom learning time to concentrate on the project which will support cleaning up of the ‘Oorni’.

“We need Dh13,000 to clean up the Ambal Oorni which is the main source of water for the villages. It is stagnated with silt, plastic bottles and household waste.”

The students have already raised over Dh9,000 through school fairs and are expecting to raise the remaining amount in the coming months.

“Once we complete the ‘Ambal Oorni’ project, we will concentrate on building a drainage system and latrines for the villagers,” added Mayank Mathur, who is also a part of the project.

Aniket Debroy, Head of Environment Studies at the school says the project will be an inspiration to other students.

“The work these students are doing is incredible. At first, I thought they were being unrealistic but their dedication and hard work has made the project a reality,” said Aniket.

Though the four belong to the Science stream, students from the school need to take up environment studies from grade 9 to 12 as part of their curriculum.

The group will fly to India again in July to complete the first phase of the village adoption programme.

“Our children need to learn to give back to society and this is a wonderful opportunity,” said Darryl Bloud, Principal, Dubai Modern High School. “Just giving a donation is the easy way out, but we want our students to take the responsibility of ensuring that the village we adopt ultimately becomes self-sustaining. This will be an ongoing project and Modern is happy to be associated with the Oorani Project, which is entirely a student driven initiative.”

muaz@khaleejtimes.com