KOLKATA, India (UCAN) – Students, arming themselves with brooms, swept a busy street in Kolkata on Nov. 15 to highlight the need for civic consciousness.

Students clean a stretch of a central Kolkata street to mark Children’s Day

“We are responsible for the dirt and muck on the streets, so we need to take steps to keep the city clean,” said Tanay Saigal of St. Joseph’s College. Saigal was among some 160 young people from 20 educational institutions who cleaned a 200-meter stretch of Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road that day.

The Jesuit-initiated Leadership Training Service (LTS) organized the initiative to mark national Children’s Day.

Students across India usually observe Children’s Day on Nov. 14, the anniversary of the birth of Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister, who loved children.

Jimmy Tangerine, a former LTS member who organized the event, said the group decided to hold the street clean-up a day late since most schools had their own programs on Nov. 14.

The LTS was introduced by the Jesuits of South Asia some 50 years ago to encourage leadership among students. The Kolkata-based service has thousands of members from various religions.

Father George Pattery and city councilor Sushmita Chatterjee clean Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road

Saigal, 16, said he found the cleanliness drive useful. “At least it made us aware of the conditions of our city’s roads. Often the dirt on the road does not bother us because we are so used to it,” he told UCA News.

Radhika Kishore Puria of Loreto College said the clean-up helped her empathize better with those forced to live on the streets. She said prior to participating in the program, she had simply overlooked the dirt and filth.

Her friend, Upasana Rohia, said she was encouraged to see many bystanders volunteering to help the students. “I was fascinated by the people’s positive response,” she added.

Launching the event, Sushmita Chatterjee, who represents the area in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, said the students have set an example for their elders whose lack of civic pride had spoilt the environment.

Chatterjee, a former teacher at Kolkata’s Don Bosco School, expressed regret at the lack of civic consciousness in the city and how people accept dirty streets as part of life. “We should be happy” if a few people “follow your example,” she told the students after symbolically sweeping part of the road with Calcutta Jesuit provincial Father George Pattery.

Tangerine, who owns a local shortwave radio station, said he hopes the “experimental drive” would become a movement with more schools joining in. The LTS has “great potential” to mobilize students, he said. His group plans to get more institutions to conduct similar initiatives regularly, he added.