Media release

Mangaluru, Jun 8: The department of Secretarial Practice, St Agnes College (Autonomous), inaugurated the environment-friendly project ‘Be Earth-Wise’ with the tagline ‘Let’s do our bit for the Planet’ on  June 7 in A4, Avila Block. Jayaprakash, an environmentalist from Mangaluru, was the resource person.

Addressing the students, tprincipal Sr Dr Venissa AC, appreciated the department for taking up the eco friendly activity on the campus. She highlighted the importance of protecting the environment for the benefit of all. Further, she said that this is one such project where she would want the participants to be the leaders in bringing awareness and changes in the campus as well as in various schools and colleges of Mangaluru city.

Jayaprakash, the resource person, in his address informed the participants about how he fulfills his responsibilities towards saving the planet earth by avoiding the plastic usage in his daily life. He said that from the past 25 years he has used only cloth bags for shopping, a small container inside the cloth bag to buy non-vegetarian items. He wears eco-friendly materials as his clothing with shirt buttons made up of coconut shells. He said that he uses the throw away plastic bottles to fill the plastic waste and utilizes the same as bricks etc. He shared with the students thirty easy ways in which a person can do his best to nurture the nature.

In the workshop he taught the students the technique of preparing a seed-pen with paper, glue, a ball-point refill and by adding seeds to make it more eco-friendly when it is discarded. Every student prepared a seed pen which were collected at the end and were categorized as the best, marginal and poor by Jayaprakash. The students who prepared the best were chosen for continuing the project.

The programme began with a prayer lead by Sharlin and group, Shanthi Nazareth, dean of Humanities welcomed,  Jessica D’Souza proposed a vote of thanks, Pooja Shetty, faculty of the department concluded the session by giving a feedback and with a note of gratitude, Afrah Aysha compered the programme. Sixty students of the department from first, second and third year benefitted from this programme. The department intends to continue this project with the help of students as its small contribution in bringing awareness and change.