Every year, school notebooks tend to die a premature death, with many unwritten pages making it to the kabadiwallah along with those that have been scribbled upon. Residents of SSM Nagar in New Perungalathur have decided to salvage the unused pages and create new notebooks with them for underprivileged children.
P.S. Jayaraman, a resident of SSM Nagar and a volunteer in this initiative, recalls that the idea came knocking on their doors two months ago, at the beginning of the summer vacation.
“The spark came from an Instagram story from Bengaluru: a voluntary organisation was creating notebooks from unused pages for children who cannot afford new notebooks. SSM Nagar has 2880 houses and many partially used notebooks were poised to go to the kabbadiwallah. We wanted to bring these old notebooks under the scope of the initiative, and more old notebooks: we approached the surrounding communities, TVS Villas, S&P Villas, Casa Grand Villas and Isha Apartments, seeking that they make common cause with us, and they did. A WhatsApp group consisting of residents of SSM Nagar and also of these communities was specially created for this purpose. Some donated old notebooks, some made monetary donations (which would be required for binding) and some others, new notebooks.”
Not only notebooks, but old erasers, pencils and school bags also dropped into the donation box.
Prakrith Arivagam Library, a non-profit children’s library located near SSM Nagar and run by an SSM Nagar resident, Sriram Gopalan, was going to power the initiative. Sriram says, “Back when my brothers and I were in school, we would remove unused pages of notebooks at the end of an academic year, and create rough notebooks out of them for the next year.”
The library is the venue for the segregation of unused pages in old notebooks and the assembly of new notebooks.
“The initiative has drawn 30 volunteers — 25 adults and five children — the majority from SSM Nagar and the rest from the communities around it,” says Jayaraman.
The beneficiaries
Jayaraman notes that they did not have to cast around for beneficiaries. They were clearly in their line of sight — two government schools, one in Nedunkundram and the other in Alapakkam.
Jayaraman elaborates: “We approached the principals of both schools. We realised the Alapakkam school was more in need of this charity than the other. They wanted different varieties of notebooks — 200 pages, 100 pages, ruled, unruled and so on. According to the needs, we segregated the books. After segregation, we sent the notebooks for binding. We have recycled not less than 700 notebooks. By the end of the month, we will hand over the notebooks to the Alapakkam school, with the Nedunkundram panchayat president presiding over the event. As we have a couple of weeks to go, we are working towards adding to the number of notebooks that we have already readied”.
For more details about the notebook recycling initiative, call 9445411121.
