Karo Sambhav, a tech-enabled Producer Responsibility Organisation (PRO), engaged in developing and implementing responsible electronic waste (e-waste) management solutions across India, organised a felicitation ceremony at Modern Public School, Shalimar Bagh in Delhi today. The event was organised in conjunction with the successful culmination of the four month-long school programme aimed at building awareness and inspiring students towards recycling of e-waste.
Designed for students from class 5 to 10, the programme was carried out at 70 schools in Delhi. During the felicitation ceremony students, teachers and schools were awarded under various categories.
Gyan Mandir Public School and St. Mary’s School, Dwarka were honoured for collecting maximum e-waste amounting to a volume of 330 kg. Six schools won the award for best toolkit execution which include Venkateshwar Global School; Delhi International School; Gyan Mandir Public School; Apeejay School; Modern Public School, Shalimar Bagh and Bharti Public School, Swasthya Vihar. Venkateshwar Global School; Delhi International School; Modern Public School, Shalimar Bagh; St. Giri School; Evergreen Public School, Vasundhara Enclave and Bharti Public School bagged the title for Best Community Outreach Programme.
Talking about the success of this programme, Pranshu Singhal, Founder, Karo Sambhav, said, “We are building a cohesive e waste movement across India. We envision to drive a long-term behavioural change with respect to critical environmental issues, through Karo Sambhav School Programme.”
The programme enabled by principal partners Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo among others aims to create awareness among students on critical environmental issues like the waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), preventive environmental strategies, and inspiring them to take actions in their daily lives. Other partners of the programme include Xiaomi, M-Tech, Savex, Supertron, Inflow, and HMD. Karo Sambhav has partnered with International Finance Corporation (IFC), member of World Bank Group, to build sustainable e-waste solutions for India with a focus on awareness generation, capacity building and knowledge exchange.
Sarina Bolla, Program Manager for IFC’s India E-waste Program said, “The use of technology is increasing exponentially and building awareness among future generations will enable more responsible use and disposable of electronic waste. We encourage student to join the movement and support our objective in building a responsible and sustainable e-waste management ecosystem in India.”
In order to increase the efficacy of the program, the curriculum of the program was designed as a toolkit of 7 exercises to enable development of participating teachers’ competence and to empower them to provide enriching practical experience to the students. Also, the awards were given based on the continuous field visits, and communication established with the participating schools by Juana Technologies, the execution partner of Karo Sambhav in NCR. Since, July 2017, Karo Sambhav has engaged with over 1800 schools across India, in alignment with the State Education Departments, and the State Pollution Control Boards.