03 Jan 2022
Ganga Mashal Yatra: A flame to connect people with the Ganges and the need to beat plastic pollution
Journeying across the Gangetic belt UNEP’s CounterMEASURE project and National Mission for Clean Ganga in India collaborate with local development partners to celebrate India’s rivers and highlight solutions for plastic pollution in a series of offline events. Let’s choose #BetterThanPlastic #PlasticSeBehtar. Scroll through this photo story to see the highlights.

PHOTO STORY

Summary: Journeying across the Gangetic belt UNEP’s CounterMEASURE project and National Mission for Clean Ganga in India collaborate with local development partners to celebrate India’s rivers and highlight solutions for plastic pollution in a series of offline events. Let’s choose #BetterThanPlastic #PlasticSeBehtar. Scroll through this photo story to see the highlights. 

To commemorate the occasion of Ganga Utsav (festival) – anniversary of the announcement of the River Ganga as the ‘National River’ – the United Nations Environment Programme’s CounterMEASURE project, National Mission for Clean Ganga (Chaired by Ministry of Jal Shakti, government of India) and their partners (National Green Mentors, Bharat Scouts, Guide Bihar and the Tide Turners Challenge) collaborated for the Ganga Mashal Yatra – Celebrating Rivers.

Moving across 23 destinations located in 5 States including locations like Rishikesh, Kanpur, Prayagraj, Varanasi, Patna and Munger over the course of three weeks, the yatra drew attention to the impact of plastic pollution on rivers through unique interventions like performances, clean-up drives and competitions. 

In Rishikesh, the Ganga Mashal was welcomed at Triveni Ghat by Shri Premchand Aggarwal, Speaker, Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly and Smt. Anita Mamgai, Mayor, Rishikesh.

In Bihar, youth champions and volunteers joined for a clean up drive on the Ganga Ghat.

“Ganga’s cleanliness is of utmost importance and we all need to make an effort to choose better than plastic in our daily lives.”

– a group of students participating in the events at Rishikesh, India.

UNEP and its partners ((National Green Mentors, Bharat Scouts, Guide Bihar and the Tide Turners Challenge) collaborated to organise over 25 activities, engaging 600 people including students, teachers and volunteers offline and 280,000+ people online. 

The activities included:

• Ganga Sanskar – Human Behaviour with water- live activity
• Kahani Ganga Ji Ki – Mystic Story of Ganges – live activity
• Dialogue on Ganges Communication with local Community Members – live activity
• Cleaning River Bank Collecting Trash from river Banks of Ganges – live activity
• Gangetic Dolphins and Turtles Story of Dolphins and Turtles – live activity
• Poetry on Ganges Poetry recitation – live activity
• Water Pollution Poison for people poster presentation
• Plastic Free Ganga No more Plastic Please – Poster presentation
• Trash Collection from Ghats Kachre se kanchan poster presentation

Young students were also educated on how to create awareness around plastic pollution using social media and storytelling in a workshop at the launch of the Ganga Mashal Yatra

Various cultural activities and performances created by school students to spread awareness around keeping our rivers clean across different cities during the Ganga Utsav 2021.

A look at the Ganga Mashaal through the days:

The events were widely covered by local media publications across different states:

The CounterMEASURE project will continue engaging stakeholders and the public for protecting our rivers from plastic pollution.

Find more updates from it’s ongoing campaign #PlasticSeBehtar (#BetterThanPlastic) on social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Sharechat. 

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Tell us how you are choosing #PlasticSeBehtar in your daily life, homes, businesses and communities. We’ll feature your entries in our next photo story!

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