Humara Bachpan highlights slum children’s issues on Earth Day

Reported by Santosh Jagdev
Bhubaneswar, Apr 22 :

While children and students across Odisha celebrated the Earth Day on Tuesday, Humara Bachpan, an organisation fighting for the rights of slum children came up with an innovative ‘flash mob’ followed by a rally by the slum children at the Old bus stand, here.

City based organisations like CCWD and GJS had conceptualised the whole initiative and also done a signature campaign on this occasion. Near about 100 children from around 10 slums had participated in this drive.

Humara Bachpan said, the waste collection coverage in India ranges from 70 per cent to 90 per cent in major metropolitan cities, and is less than 50 per cent in smaller cities. This encourages bacterial and fungal spores produced by decaying waste are ten times higher in areas where the bins are not collected regularly. This adversely affect the children’s health causing serious ailments.

“ It is estimated that about 1,15,000 MT solid waste is generated in the country. Per capita waste generation in city varies from 0.2 kg to 0.6 kg per day. This is increasing by 1.3% per year. This has now reached an alarming proportion impacting the soil in urban areas , especially slums,” the organization said in its release.

“In Odisha specifically the urban areas; the issue of open defecation is rampant. More than fifty percent of the urban slum dwellers defecate in the open. It affects the soil close to the slums and it also causes many diseases among the children. Dumping yards also cause great harm to the air and soil and increase the children’s vulnerability to serious health hazards,” it added