NGO YSD has taken a series of initiatives to make the silk city child-friendly.
Notably, 33 per cent of Brahmapur city’s population lives in slums and suffers due to the absence of basic facilities like water, sanitation, housing and a better living condition. Specifically, the children are the worst sufferers.
Sanitation is one of the major issues in city. According to an estimate, the total solid waste generated in the city is estimated to be 160 tons per day and the per capita waste generation remains at 390 grams per person. However, only 56.6 per cent of waste is collected and disposed of.
The Brahampur Municipal Corporation (BMC) has been allocated funds for garbage collection and solid waste management. The BMC has taken the responsibility for collection of garbage in 16 wards while in the remaining 24 wards private parties have been engaged. Now, the initiatives taken by the YSD will support Brahmapur to become a Smart City and help build a child-friendly city.
The YSD has formed 27 child clubs in 30 slums and facilitated a children’s federation in the city. With the support of children and slum communities, it has been trying to make slums liveable for children and protect them from harmful environment through engaging with Government and civil society. For the first time, the NGO has developed and installed a ‘tri-colour community dustbin’ featuring intermediate storage of solid wastes. It consists of three types of dustbins, Blue meant for food wastage, Green for recycle wastage and Red for harmful wastage. It has been installed in Dimira Bauri Street in ward number 25 under BMC.
Communities have been mobilised to gather waste in different bins at the community level as per different kinds of waste collected from their home and slum. The BMC has assigned to collect the waste from the bin at a regular basis. Child club members and community groups of Dimira Bauri Street have taken the responsibility to monitor the entire system of collection and transportation.
This child-friendly environment demonstration model was inaugurated by Corporator Mamatarani Roy of Ward-25. More than 50 women, children and community members and child clubs members were present on the occasion. The YSD has plan to create new child friendly models like mini park, children resource centre, zebra crossing in various slums in Brahmapur.