13 Mar : Mr. Ruskin Bond eminent Indian author of British descent will be the chief guest at the launch of the National Campaign of the Ministry of Environment & Forests CO 2: Pick Right and the Kaun Banega Bharat Ka Paryavaran Ambassador (KBPA) on Saturday the 14 march 2009 at the Commonwealth Youth Programme Asia centre sector 12 Chandigarh and organized by the Environment Society of India (ESI). While he Pick Right campaign is aimed at spreading awareness about climate change, its causes and effects, and individuals choosing the best options for sustainability, the Paryavaran Ambassador campaign will help choose a person to be the spokesperson on environmental issues, who can encourage people to make right lifestyle choices.
One of the major target groups of these campaigns are the students in the 2 lakh schools proposed to be covered. These include more than 1, 00,000 schools which are partner in the Ministry‘s National Green Corps (NGC) Programme. The KBPA campaign provides an opportunity to each school to vote to choose the Paryavaran Ambassador. Each school is expected to come to be consensus on one Paryavaran Ambassador. It can then send in its vote in the postcard included in the Pick Right Packet. The postcard has to be sent to Centre for Environment Education (CEE), Ahmedabad, which is a Centre of Excellence under MOEF and is implementing this programme in collaboration with Arcelor Mittal.
We would like all Schools to actively participate in this campaign. The NGC schools can take this up as part of the NGC activity. The Paryavaran Ambassador will be announced on 5th June, 2009. We urge all to schools to involve students and send in their vote to reach the CEE by 15th of April, 2009 to enable it to consolidate the results of poll during May.
The kits will be given to representatives of some schools in Chandigarh (UT), Mohali (Punjab) Panchkula (Haryana) and Parwanoo (HP) at the function to be held at the Commonwealth Youth Programme Asia Centre on 14th March 2009 at 11 A.M. Besides a folder on Water Falls of Sukhna Lake will be released.