Projetcs
Director Vimlendu Jha says, “We have been working as non-profitable organization for the betterment of pitiable state of Yamuna in the capital since 10 years. We started with our first campaign, ‘We for Yamuna’, it was an awareness campaign about the dying river. In its early days, in year 2000, we got amazing response from the youth of Delhi. The much better thing was chief minister announced, a 5 days ‘Shramdaan’ a voluntary clean-up drive of river at eight different locations after our initiative.”
What makes Swechha different from other NGOs, “We have three cross cutting core areas- environment and education, youth and civil society and active citizenship that sets us apart from the rest of other NGOs,” adds Vimlendu. In last 10 years Swechha has tied up with 60 leading schools all over India for different environment issues. Vimlendu says, “We are advocating coexistence of both development and environment and that is thing what we are trying to tell the young generation.”
Challenges
“In earlier days when most of us were undergraduate students came together to take a solid action on pitiable condition of Yamuna. We were just amateur activist’s group and didn’t know what to do and how. One day, we were sitting near Dilli Haat and decided to form a youth led group later we finalized the name ‘Swechha’. We did street plays, pamphlet distribution, awareness campaigns and lots of other odd jobs to promote the cause and issue.” Vimlendu recalls. He told that since team of volunteers visiting authorities for assistance, they had to encounter rowdy people.
Plans
Swechha is opposed the encroachments of the Yamuna bank with concrete structures. Now, they are planning to work as pressure group to compel government to formulate policies against encroachment of river. They have also started a volunteer driven community programme called ‘Pagdandi’ that focuses on human contribution to save environment. On world environment day, volunteers organize cyclthon to spread awareness about clean energy and save environment.