Eco warriors help town breathe easy

It is not just students from private schools that aid in bringing positive changes to society. The wards of a Government Panchayat Union Middle School in Urulaikudi in Thoothukudi district have taken on the responsibility of highlighting the ill-effects of Prosopis Juliflora, a harmful weed and eliminating it from their village. 

This is one the 23 government schools from Tamil Nadu which were among the top 100 adjudged to be the best project in a competition held by the NGO Design for Change. G Ganesamoorthy, K Rajaram, M Muthukumaresa (all in Class VII) and N Karthikeyan (Class VIII) are the group of students who were involved in the project. 

Explaining their project, Ganesamoorthy said that Prosopis Juliflora had lot of ill-effects, including making it difficult for human beings to inhale Oxygen, which made their team come up with the project to remove Prosopis Juliflora from their village. He stated that initially they had resistance from the villagers to remove the tree as they used it for firewood. 

Rajaram said with help from teachers, they held discussions with villagers and created awareness on the need to fell Prosopis Juliflora trees. “People readily accepted our demands, uprooted the trees and planted other beneficial trees to preserve green cover. 

With this we were able to make a change in our village,” Muthukumaresa said. Karthikeyan added that they were proud to do their bit for the betterment of their village.