72. Volunteering with SCoRe- Sundays dedicated to the environment

Sundays are the best part of my week. The perfect end and the much-needed relief before another beginning. I have always enjoyed my Sunday, sometimes just chilling at home or maybe meeting friends and family or those brunches that everybody loves. While this was my kind of enjoyment, SCoRe made me realise that Sundays can be productive and amazing at the same time.

Joseph Addison once said, “Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.” To me, this meant that we can rest on Sundays and be ready for the week to come, but, with SCoRe I have learned a new meaning. Now Sunday to me means doing something different from the mundane work, being productive, giving back to the society and feeling good about myself.

SCoRe includes 100 hours of community service in its unique curriculum. This requires the students to spend a few hours on Sundays volunteering for different causes such as environment and clean-up, animal Rights, child rights and education, and helping people with disability. The students are divided into four groups dedicated to each cause.

For the past three months, I have been working for the environment and clean-up group. Under this, we are associated with GreenLine, an environmental organisation to study in-depth and work on environmental issues. The first few weeks were spent cleaning different beaches in Mumbai. Followed by lengthy discussions on subjects such as waste segregation, plastic pollution, microplastic and its impact, landfills in Mumbai, and measures that could be taken for better waste management.

Everyone is generally aware of environmental issues and climate change. We are all aware but ignorant of these problems. I had the same thought process, it is not that we don’t want to help, but rather we don’t know how to help. The problem is so huge now that we don’t know where to start. I am fortunate because my college has given me the platform to give back to society. And, now I want to keep doing this, I want to make this a part of my routine. Likewise, we all can find ways around us to help the environment. If you want to contribute, start by doing basic things such as avoid plastic, recycle or reuse old stuff, segregate your household waste or just don’t litter. Hoping these small acts collectively will have a better result.