My Green School initiative gets bigger!

CHENNAI: A recently inaugurated project by a social enterprise, aimed at more effectively imparting compulsory environmental education to school children, is set to expand to a more schools over the next few months. The initiative, called ‘My Green School’, of the social enterprise called Making Earth Smile Again (MESA), was recently inaugurated at the Sacred Heart Matriculation School at Church Park, and is set to be opened in one more school and  college by next week.“The idea is to make environmental education and the sensibility more prevalent and lasting in the minds of children. Schools take up environmental education only because it is mandatory. It is usually handled by biology or chemistry teachers, who have no expertise in dealing with the subject. That’s when we thought of a eco lab like the physics or chemistry lab,” says Abdul Ghani of MESA.He adds that children usually grow up with a negative image of environmental conservation. For example, it is mostly seen as picking up garbage and putting it in the bin. Abdul says it is crucial to display to the young mind the positive aspects, such as recycling, reuse and composting of waste materials.“Only if we do this, there will be a foundation and natural drive towards effective environmental conservation. Under our present system, we have no way of understanding such things till we reach college,” says Ghani.The unit at Sacred Heart contains facilities that will enable the children to see and take part in the positive handling of wastes that have been collected on the school campus by students. The composting of organic wastes would also be on display.MESA plans to expand the programme across the state. “We will very soon be opening our centres in Sethu Bhaskara Matriculation School in Ambattur and Nazareth College in Avadi. Our goal is to have at least one of these centres in each district,” says Ghani.