Over 150 students help make their school more colourful

Students of Govt SITE Model School Campus hold clean-up on Friday

KARACHI: Government schools tell a tale of neglect due to the general indifference of the people and emergence of private sector schools. The buildings are not renovated for decades and the unpainted boundary walls serve as avenues for all kinds of graffiti.

Nonetheless, the students of Government SITE Model School Campus took it upon themselves on Friday to clean up the school and its premises. Armed with broomsticks, paint brushes, garbage disposal bags, spray paints and a whole lot of energy, more than 150 students, including volunteers from Abdoz Arts, took up the task to uplift the unpaved street at the main entrance of the school.

The students cleaned the unpaved street in front of their school, which is a pilot project of the Committee for Monitoring and Improvement of Schools (CMIS) of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers Of Commerce and Industry. The school has been adopted by Hinopak Motors Ltd in collaboration with CMIS.



The students managed to clean an area stretching over 100 metres and collected garbage, which used to make the entrance of the school look dirty. What started as a competition for classes six, seven and eight, quickly turned out to be a school activity with students from junior section also participating and helping the senior students.

The students used the boundary walls of their school as canvas for their drawing competition. Painting the wall with blue spray paint, Shahzeb Ahmed, a student of class seven, was happy to do something to make his school look clean as compared to other schools in the area.

The students picked up the garbage, whitewashed the walls and then painted motivational messages on them. “The idea of involving students through drawing competition is to make them realise the importance of cleanliness so that they will [save the walls from graffiti] in the future, too,” said CMIS Town Education Development Centre manager Niaz Wali Khan. The theme for the project was ‘Dream Pakistan, clean Pakistan’. “Around 40 students are participating in the drawing competition while the others are helping them in painting,” he added.



A passer-by stopped to take pictures and videos of the class four and five students wearing yellow t-shirts and helping their seniors. “Engaging students in such activities will help them avoid bad activities,” he said.

The boundary wall of the school, which had slogans of political parties spewed on it, was painted with symbols of books, birds, educational messages and trees. “We are enjoying painting and working with artists,” said a student of class six, Samiullah, his hands covered in red paint. “They are teaching us how to use spray paints and what to make.” He was painting a message on the wall that read ‘Education is the engine of development’.

Another student, Bilal Saeed, said that he will ensure that the walls remain clean and the paintings protected whenever anyone tries to write graffiti on them. “My class fellows and I will keep it clean and [will prevent] it [from becoming] ugly again,” he said. He lives in the school with his father, who works as a guard for the school.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 15^th, 2015.