How can we lead our children to be ambassadors of change? A unique campaign by ITC brand Sunfeast YiPPee! has paved the way in this regard.
Through its ‘Better World Trash to Treasure’ campaign, the brand made an effort to educate children about the importance of plastic waste management.
The idea? To bring behavioural change in 35 lakh students across 100 cities to understand the burden of plastic waste on our environment.
The brand distributed noodle packets to these students, asking them to carefully keep the packets and return them later.
Alongside, they educated the kids about the harmful effects of plastic pollution in daily life.
To further emphasise their campaign ideology, they asked kids to collect plastic waste from around the school and deposit it at designated collection points.
This conveyed the message of responsible plastic management.
Two such participating schools were the Indraprastha Convent Senior Secondary School in Delhi and Urwa High School in Hyderabad.
They found the campaign unique and effective!
Chesta Kumari, a class 8 student at Indraprastha, shares that the campaign was an “eye opener”.
She adds that it helped her change the mindset of her parents who would earlier believe that plastic is long-lasting and hence useful.
Nitisha Yadav, her principal, says the campaign also helped teachers come up with new ideas to educate children in developing responsible social behaviour.
“We asked our students to replace plastic bags with cotton-cloth bags and even taught them how to make one by themselves,” she says.
She adds that they asked them to switch to steel or glass tiffin boxes instead of plastic ones to avoid the health risks caused by plastics.
Meanwhile, Meherunissa Begum, the principal of Urwa High School, Hyderabad, says the brand also narrated stories to the students with facts and figures of how the problem of plastic pollution is grave.
She shares that this initiative has had a positive impact on the students.
“Last month, the parents of one of my Class 7 students reached out to us. They shared that their son has been calling out everyone on their excessive and unnecessary plastic usage — right from his grandparents to the vegetable vendors.”
Zaki Mohammed, a Class 8 student from the school, says his favourite part was making craft items from plastic waste.
“My teacher taught me how to recycle plastic packets and empty bottles into flower vases, bookmarks and pen stands.”