LAHORE: The officials of the Turkish waste management company have been surprised by the walled city residents’ excellent response to their efforts aimed at making the narrow streets and thoroughfares in the area clean.

On the other hand, they found residents of Gujjarpura least bothered about cleanliness in their area, says an official of a Turkish company that is engaged with the Lahore Waste Management Company in various cleanliness related activities in a number of union councils in the city.

“When we entered the walled city a couple of months ago, we were not so optimistic about success of our drive in the area since a majority of residents were in the habit of throwing domestic waste in the streets, in spite of the mini skips placed at various spots,” Ms Naeema Saeed, Communication Manager of Al-Bayrak, told Dawn on Sunday.

She said that keeping in view the situation, the company constituted a team of seven officials of its communication wing to launch an awareness and advocacy campaign, not only in the walled city but also in many other areas of the provincial metropolis.

Ms Saeed said during the campaign, the team employed various advocacy methods, including door knocking, meeting residents individually and in groups, sensitisation sessions with the residents, religious leaders, traders, social activists and government departments. Finally the residents started cooperating with the team by dumping the waste into the skips instead of streets and keeping the space in front of their houses clean on their own after they were mobilised, she added.

In Gujjarpura (China Scheme), she said, the team found the residents uncooperative as they continued to ignore requests made by the company officials regarding waste management. “But we will continue to educate them. And we hope that they will soon be on the right track like the walled city residents,” she believed.

Besides, she said the team was also organising awareness-raising seminars, walks, debate competitions and other activities in educational institutions to sensitise students on cleanliness through affective waste management.

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2016