Members of the Making a Difference by Being the Difference (MAD) made paper bags and set up a stall for collection of woollens for the destitute at Rajpur Nature Festival.
They conducted a paper bag making activity while other activities were going on simultaneously in the festival. Volunteers of the group said that they had held a similar activity earlier on Sunday at the Gandhi Park. They said that onlookers had appreciated their efforts towards making Dehradun a polythene-free city.
In addition to this, the volunteers also set up a stall for collection of woollens and warm clothing to be donated to the destitute in view of the festive season and winter.
As done in past weeks, the volunteers of MAD conducted a paper-bag making activity at the Gandhi Park with about 25 group members participating. As the volunteers started making paper bags in groups, the onlookers at Gandhi Park also joined the activity and learnt to make paper bags from the volunteers. Even children who beg for alms at the park learned how to make the paper bags.
The volunteers of the group also requested the public to use paper bags and minimise the use of polythene bags to prevent severe environmental damage.
“While making paper bags is in sync with minimising (and eventually eliminating) polythene bag usage for a greener environment; collecting warm clothes depicts another of our important goals, which is empathising with the less privileged,” said the group’s founding president Abhijay Negi.