Kerala - Thrissur   

Drive in schools for zero waste

Thrissur: With a mission to creating a culture of sanitation and hygiene education at schools, a campaign has been launched in Thrissur district.

About five lakh students of government, aided and unaided schools in the district will join the Zero Waste School Campaign 2008, which is being implemented by the district panchayat, the Total Sanitation Mission and the Public Education Department.

There are 519 lower primary, 231 upper primary, 261 high schools in the district. In all, 104 high schools have Higher Secondary divisions.

The district has been entrusted with more responsibilities on the health front as it was declared as Nirmal district. All grama panchayats of the district have received Nirmal Gram Puraskar of the Ministry of Rural Development for successfully implementing sanitation schemes.

In the first phase of the campaign, school-level health and sanitation clubs will conduct sanitation surveys in all schools, project director of District Poverty Alleviation Unit C. Chandra Babu said.

Coordination of students, parents and teachers for the health mission, formation of health and sanitation clubs in all schools and strengthening of activities of the existing ones will be part the first phase. Awareness programmes will also be held.

Though the Kerala Education Rules insist on providing separate toilets for girls, boys and teachers, many schools do not have proper toilets. And, many of the existing ones are poorly maintained.

Teenage girls faced many health problems owing to inadequate sanitary facilities at the schools. The campaign will address these issues.

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