A step towards clean India- The Bagit Challenge!
The Bagit challenge was founded by Akshat Prakash from Delhi Public School, Indirapuram. His motivation behind the challenge was Ghaziabad's river Hindon. Each day he passed the river, he realized more black being swept over what was supposed to be blue. He therefore decided to involve schools and create a community involved in cleaning, influenced by the ice-bucket challenge and Swacch Bharat Abhiyan.
The Bagit Challenge was launched in August 2015. It was initiated at Indirapuram, Ghaziabad and has spread up to Kalyanpur; as of now their reach extends to 17 schools in the Delhi-NCR region. Schools have sprouted up to not only participate, but also enthusiastically support the unique initiative. The aim is to finally spread this chain-reaction across the country.
A school goes to an area, fills up garbage-bags with the waste collected and declares its "Bag Tally" (number of garbage-bags collected). It makes a video-presentation and posts it on the official facebook page; the leaderboard is updated with that school's bag tally. This school then nominates three more schools and like this the chain reaction drives forward. Schools can sign-up directly through email.
The name 'Bagit' was quite spontaneous. It points to the simple fact that you are picking up trash. The hope is that one day each one of us atleast bends down to pick up our own garbage.
The team is led by Akshat Prakash with the support of his Principal Mrs. Meeta Rai (Delhi Public School, Indirapuram), School Council and team. The core team includes Shashwat Prakash, Apoorva, Amandeep, Shreya Arya, Shreya Rawat, Kaustav Sharma, Ayush, Mrinal Seth, Kshamta, Jatin, Nandini, Sanjana, Saishh, Shivam Bhatia, Nikita Bhatia, Channkrit and Prajwal Gupta.
The response to this challenge has been over-whelming. This endeavour has made it to the TATA Social Enterprise Challenge The team was also invited to India's leading radio station RED FM 93.5 to promote the BagitChallenge. They met with Smriti Irani wherein they introduced the topic of Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan for school students, and proposed the Bagit Challenge as a solution for the same.
