Juhu Beach Cleanup: A Collaborative Effort By Earth5R & Hexaware
“The ocean touches you in every way. With every drop of water you drink, every breath you take, you are connected to the ocean.” .– SYLVIA ALICE EARLE, MARINE BIOLOGIST
It is a commonplace that the sea levels are rising due to global warming and now man is causing such deleterious effects such as harming the living resources and marine life, hazards to human health, hindrance to marine activities, including fishing and other legitimate uses of the sea, impairment of quality for use of the sea water and reduction of amenities.
About 34% of India’s mangroves were destroyed during 1950-2000 (although substantial restoration has taken place over the past 10 years); almost all coral areas are threatened, marine fish stocks are declining and several species of ornamental fish are fast disappearing. Not just this, the health of people living nearby and the local economies are at stake!
This year, on September 17 which sees the International Coast Cleanup Day, many beaches across the country saw volunteers coming in hordes for cleanups; especially to clean the post-visarjan mess.
The team of Hexaware Technologies Limited paired up with Earth5R, for the mission to restore Juhu beach, which, after bidding adieu to Load Ganesha, could be mistaken for a dumping ground. No kidding!
About 37 employees from Hexaware Technologies participated in the activity with volunteers from the Earth5R team including Saurabh Gupta, the founder and CEO and Sunny Singh, the product designer for Earth5R , Akshita Shah and Ramesh Zaru.
The team gathered at the beach at 9 A.M. To begin with the session, the founder of Earth5R, Saurabh Gupta introduced Hexaware team to the creative waste management initiatives like Coffee Dolls which is a Social Entrepreneurship project of Earth5R that aims at providing livelihood to women living in slums across India, along with financial literacy. This project has impact triple-fold – Social, environmental and economic.
With big garbage bags and even bigger enthusiasm, they set out to get their hands dirty.For the sake of convenience and fun, the whole bunch was divided into four teams. Each team occupied a specific portion of the beach. It poured, it was humid, but the volunteers were determined.
They also encouraged people around to take an active role in the preservation and cleaning up of the coastal area.The volunteers were fully satisfied with the amazing outcome. The activity ended at 11:30 A.M. after which the employees shared their experience and feedback on with the Earth5R team.
Earth5R would like to thank the following people from Hexaware Technologies for such great participation and enthusiasm that made the event a riveting success:Amberin Memon, Amit Singh, Pooja Singh, Safaan Companywalla, Prachi Jain, Sujeet Poojari, Palak Jain, Abhinandan Mahata, Arun Devadiga, Srikrishna Chaudhary, Ather Hussain, Sandeep Shukla, Akanksha Khandare, Sanjit Kumar, Amol Vhogal, Srikant Nangare, Tania chatterjee, Sangip Sen, Srishti, Lokesh R, Deepshika Konija, Parag Harnaikar, Akanksha Vashisht, Vishal Ramsing, Amit Auchare, Neha Auchar, Shweta Sharda, Deepti Sanil, Sopan Kadam, Praveen Shetty, Pratibha Banginawar, Gurmit Singh, Saurabh Kumar, Parul Bhandari, Jacob P U , Haresh Lulla, Nilay Jhala and Wilfred Ferrao.
– Reported by Akshita Shah, Edited by Anushka Mehta, Photos by Akshita Shah, Saurabh Gupta and Ramesh Zaru