Volunteers in 'Involvement to Ideas and to Initiatives'

EVENT: RATNAPARK CLEAN-UP PROGRAM

Date: 13^th September 2008

Reporter: Ashish Bhandarai

Venue: Ratnapark, Kathmadu

Time duration: Around 4 hours

Objective: To enhance a feeling of ownership, volunteerism, group work and mutualism. Public Service.

Organizer: NYS, YI

Organizing committee: Ganesh Gautam

Total number of participants: 10

Names of Participants: Ashish Bhandari, Hemanta Katwal, Saroj Dhakal, Bidhya Joshi, Bikina Chhetri, Sunita Thapa, Ganesh Gautam, Saurav Koirala, Bikram Kunwar, Ratnesh Sashi

DESCRIPTION:

13^th September 2008, Saturday, National Youth Service (NYS) organized a ‘Ratnapark Clean-up Program’ at Ratnapark.

Although the program was scheduled to start from 11:45 am it started at about 12 noon. Firstly, the participants were divided in a group of two and were scattered around the park. The volunteers actively and mutually began cleaning the park starting by collecting plastic wastes like chocolate wrappers, bottle caps and so on and dumping them in the dustbins nearby. Few people came and inquired abut the program asking questions like;

What are you people doing?

Who are you all? From which institute have you come from?

But the reply was all simple and same;

‘ We are cleaning this park and we are students but not the representatives of any institute or firm.’

The volunteers even tried to aware the people and suggested them to keep a dustbin at least to reduce the scattering of waste and dirt. After cleaning few sites inside the park the volunteers decided to clean up a pool which was all green and filled with plastics. The volunteers cleaned the pool with such and enthusiasm and even few local kids participated in the clean up. About four sacks of waste was taken out of the pool and dumped again in a nearby dustbin.

After doing such a hard job of cleaning the area, the volunteers were tired and exhausted. It was time to conclude the program. So, the program was ended in sort of a formal manner introducing each other and expressing their views about the program. One complain was universal that the program became sort of random and sudden so that was to be eliminated. After that, all the participants left for Trichandra College, washed up and drank some water. From there everyone went their own way.

Although, the program was successful, it didn’t go as planned and it was sort of ill managed. The participants were also less as compared to the area to be cleaned and the number of people polluting it. Much awareness couldn’t be generated but a sense of ownership, volunteerism, engagement, group work and mutualism was generated amongst the volunteers.