Meri Dilli Meri Yamuna
The Meri Dilli Meri Yamuna (MDMY) campaign, initiated by Art of Living Foundation and WAYE is a unique citizens action plan undertaken in order to cultivate civic responsibility amongst the society.
The task was to begin cleaning the sacred river Yamuna and its surrounding ghats that have been polluted for several decades through industrial waste, dumping and negligence. Several corporates, NGOs, RWAs, educational institutions and multilateral bodies such as UNESCO, the government and general populace took part in a massive cleanliness campaign which started on March 17, 2010 and continued over a week. The event was launched in the inspiring presence of the founder of the Art of Living Foundation, His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji at the Purana Qila, Delhi on March 16, 2010.
During the span of the campaign, six ghats were cleaned with the efforts of 20,000 volunteers. The cleaning of the Kalindi Kunj Ghat was assigned to the WAYE volunteers and over 5000 people from various educational institutions, employees and heads of various organisations took part in the effort. The sight of the youth leadership standing up to take responsibility of such a huge task and marching ahead to complete it with bright smiles on their faces was a stupendous phenomenon. The campaign received huge media coverage with massive television and print media publicity. In addition, social media was also instrumental in garnering support for the campaign with 7500 active members on the Meri Dilli Meri Yamuna Facebook group.
Nav Chetna Shivirs , were also organised in the biggest slums in Delhi to spread awareness about the importance of cleanliness, health and hygiene. A painting competition organised as a part of the campaign was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records with over 1000 schools and 550,000 children participating. As a result of these efforts, a Think Tank was created consisting of members from government agencies, project implementation partners, NGOs and experts involved with the Yamuna. The first meeting of the Think Tank took place on the 24th July 2010 at PHD House.
