Schools, colleges wait for Red Cross Awards 2018-19

Ongole: The results of the competition in which schools and colleges participated for the first time for Juniors and Young Red Cross Awards 2018-19 are expected soon. About 1500 schools and colleges in the state are competing for the awards.

The Juniors and Young Red Cross Awards, are a state level awards, conceptualised by the Prakasam district unit of the Indian Red Cross Society. As part of the programme, the district unit entered into a memorandum of understanding with the schools and colleges to work in four categories of activities, for cleanliness, hygiene, and green cover in the campus, for conservation of energy and water and for waste management.

After the registration of the schools and colleges into the programme and with the support from DEO VS Subbarao, the Indian Red Cross has appointed nodal officers to the educational institutions to help them in achieving good results. With his encouragement, 316 schools with 31,600 students and 22 colleges with 1,760 students are participating in the programme.

DEO Subbarao, Zilla Parishad CEO Kailash Giriswar, secretary of the Prakasam IRCS and CEO of the SEP B Ravi, Prakasam IRCS chairman Dr. G Raghava explained the headmasters and principals about their concept and encouraged them to achieve more results.

The state level committee of the Red Cross Society including its AO Subhashini and manager AV Kotaiah proposed to implement it at the state level. They sent the guidelines for the state awards to all district Red Cross Societies and conducted orientation programmes. The activity for the state level awards programme has started on 01 September 2018 onwards and ended by 28 February 2019 and then the evaluation process was started.

About 69 teams have participated in the Prakasam district to evaluate the 338 schools and colleges. Sharing about the experience of the JRC and YRC Awards, the Prakasam district IRCS chairman Dr. G Raghava said that the main motto of the programme is to instil human values and spirit of social service among young people and to create a youth force of volunteers to serve the society in times of need.

For the conservation of energy and water, Raghava explained that the institution heads informed that they achieved good results by comparing with their electricity bills earlier and after the implementation of the programme. Raghava informed that for waste management, the institutions have brought evolutionary changes and making proper segregation of waste into wet and dry waste and disposal by handing over of waste to panchayat or municipal vehicles without burning it.

In the case of creating awareness on Social Concerns, Raghava explained that the institutions have conducted many social awareness programmes locally. He said that the students have participated in programs like ODF campaigns, blood donation awareness programmes , Swacch Bharath programmes, Vanam- Manam plantation programmes and paid visits to government hospitals and PHCs, old age homes, and orphanages.