Thiruvananthapuram: The capital district will witness a ‘fun cleaning festival’ at
Vellayani on October 27, thanks to the efforts of Dave Ojay from Kenya, who is pursuing a programme here as part of launching a global campaign to conserve water resources.
Ojay, who is participant of the leadership training programme at Kanthari International Institute of Social Change, said he could not sit idle seeing the pathetic condition of
Vellayani lake and thus the campaign #SaveVellayaniLake was conceived.
In a curtain raiser to the cleanliness campaign, Ojay will sensitise people about the need to conserve the water body at a stall to be put up as part of’ Spread the Spice’, an exhibition of projects by the participants of Kanthari at Manaveeyam Veedhi on Saturday. The event will also include a public lecture and discussion by environmentalist Piyush Manush from Tamil Nadu.
“Our campus (Kanthari) is located near the lake, which is facing the issues of pollution, encroachment and sand mining. The recent flood has dumped loads of plastic waste and silt, which has worsened the situation. It is time to restore the water resource. I am informed that even government stopped pumping water from the lake for drinking purposes, after it was found to be contaminated. But, farmers in the locality still depend on the lake for agriculture purposes. The
cleaning drive will be held after the exhibition. I hope that the crowd that visits the stalls at Manaveeyam will join the cleanliness drive too,” said Ojay.
Ojay is also working on a project for conservation of Lake Victoria in Africa and has founded the Naam Festival, a creative environmental activism campaign #JusticeforLakeVictoria. “It was during one of my assignments that I saw a theatre group performing on a temporary floating structure on Niger River in West Africa, to create awareness to conserve the river. On returning home in Kenya, he decided to launch a similar campaign to protect Lake Victoria, which is dying due to pollution,” he said.
The cleanliness drive will begin at 7 am. It will include workshop, performances and documentary screening. A flea market and exhibition will also be arranged on Kanthari campus. The organizers also plans to make huge figures using the plastic waste collected from the lake after the drive.
