Nikhat Fatima, TwoCircles.net
After the successful drive of # Gifting sunnah from last 2 years, the same concerned group of Hyderabad took up the cleanliness drive for Bakrid – Eid al Adha in Hyderabad
There were nearly 100 volunteers from the city, most of whom were paid for their services. They worked along with the GHMC staff ( Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation) tirelessly for 4 days.
By the evening of 11th a day before Bakrid, the volunteers went around distributing gunny bags to mosques requesting them to announce the availability of such bags at their premises to be distributed and used for proper disposal waste. Banners and Pamphlets were also distributed informing the same to the people.
During Bakrid many Muslims sacrifice sheep or goat and some families offer a sacrifice of more than one goat or sheep. But they usually dump the remains in a heap just outside their houses causing filth and stench.
Every year there are reminders to the people to clean up the blood and other wastes but this time the volunteers took it upon themselves to ensure that the localities were cleaned and people especially non-Muslims will not be put to any inconvenience.
There is already a cleanliness campaign going in Hyderabad on the lines of Swach Bharat called ‘Saaf Hyderabad, Shaandar Hyderabad’. And this additional drive for Bakrid was jokingly referred to as ‘swach Eid’ by one of the volunteers.
TwoCircles.net contacted Feroz Baig, one of the team members, who was in charge of the volunteers. Feroz told us, “When we did # Gifting Sunnah we had a database of people and we have a core group. In the core meeting, we had this idea of cleaning up the mess after ‘Qurbani’. This idea of cleaning up the mess after ‘Qurbani’ was discussed several times in the past and we thought something should be done about it. Then we met up the officials at GHMC who liked the idea and instantly extended their cooperation.”
This is the first time an initiative like this has taken place. So as a pilot project this year, the cleanup drive was taken up in Vijaynagar colony, Salarjung Colony, Kakatiya Nagar and Paramount Colony. The community members and volunteers were spread out in various parts of these areas.
The paid volunteers, who were actually daily wage labourers were paid Rs.800/- per day. Their response to being part of the project was “every day we do the same work but on the day of Eid we enjoyed a lot in helping the GHMC workers and the volunteers. We got a chance to clean the city with the Muslim community who gave us a lot of respect.”
“They were so happy that they offered to come forward to be involved in anything similar in the future.” Said Feroz Baig.
‘Qurbani’ or the sacrifice is given on the day of Eid and till the next two days. So the volunteers went around all the three days in these localities cleaning up the mess.
Twelve auto trolleys for the Bakrid cleanup project were provided by Safa Baitul Maal, an NGO based in Malakpet, Hyderabad. Money was collected through crowdfunding right from when the plan was made one month back.
And after the 3 days of collecting the animal waste, the group had planned to have a small get together with the volunteers from GHMC to thank them. Sweets packets(laddu 250 gram) were distributed to 500 GHMC workers who were part of the project from the GHMC’s side. GHMC appreciated the efforts and said “Every year during Bakrid, we used to face a lot of difficulties in cleaning the filth. But to our surprise this year we had a great support from Muslim community and a lot of appreciation and rewards from the people.”
