Green Spaces, Sacred Places: Children Gather to Clean Up Ludhiana's Parks on Earth Day

April 22, Ludhiana; Kids are the real Earth heroes! Throughout the world they have found a special place in the media for all their efforts in cleaning the earth as a part of their school event, green group target, or just fun time doing something different on Earth Day.
In Ludhiana, Punjab, a group of local kids ranging in ages from 4 to 9, spent Earth Day evening in cleaning the park at Block B of Bhai Randhir Singh Nagar, before they started to play their usual games.
It was organized by EcoSikh’s India coordinator Ravneet Pal Singh, who recorded this effort on his video camera. Watch the footage here!
“They were few in number but were truly dedicated not to leave anything behind, wrappers, aluminium foil, plastic bags etc. Nothing could stop them. They didn’t spare any trash on their way,” Ravneet Pal Singh said.
“One of the great things is that we started with just a few of us but then other kids came to join us, really desperate to join in. We hadn’t met the boy on the right in the photo before, but he saw what we were doing and he came over and said “Uncle, can I join your green group?”
Another moving thing was that many of the older residents saw what the children were doing, and they praised them and gave them blessings.
He said that as the adult in charge, particularly of young children, an important thing was to “Watch them – they pick up everything – insects, glass, you have to be careful. I said show me whatever you pick, so that I could see what they got.
“After I saw it I would say: “put it in the bag” and know that it would be safe. Someone came with a huge glass piece and I said drop it now, and then I got rid of it myself. We didn’t use gloves but they all washed their hands later. They were happy because many of the elders praised them and blessed them.”
Finally, when the kids were asked why would they or anyone would throw stuff around in the park, they had a simple answer: ”The park has no rubbish bins.”
So the next step is to talk to their parents to ask the community park organisers to install rubbish bins within the park, if possible dividing the bins between general trash, cans, bottles and paper, so there can be some recycling.
Rewards: They were extremely happy about all good work they did and they received so many blessings and compliments from all the adults and elderly who watched them cleaning up their playground, the park at Block B of Bhai Randhir Singh Nagar.