I would like to share with you a very interesting and innovative idea by which Dubai school students wanted to inculcate the attitude of cleanliness.

A group of students kicked off a novel plan to encourage fellow pupils to clean up the school canteen.

Yiahkoub Bouherrafa, a 17-year-old French grade 12 student from the School of Modern Skills in Dubai, came up with the idea of using football-themed rubbish bins and then asking students to fill the bin of their favourite teams.

In their school, the students are very passionate about football, but it also meant they got into very heated arguments so a lot of energy was wasted. This intelligent boy Yiahkoub  wanted to channel this energy into something positive so he came up with the idea to get more students to clean up after themselves as many of them do not, which means more work for the cleaners.

Yiahkoub and two other classmates labelled two bins with the club crests of Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona, and wrote a note that read: "Which football team do support' Let us know by putting your garbage in the bin that represents you. This project is not about reducing football clubs to a trash bin. It is in my opinion a way that we can show love toward the team we support."

The group carried out trials and last week officially launched the initiative at the school's sport day. On that occasion, Barcelona took the honours. The project has been so successful. It has got students into good habits.

Many students rushed to put garbage in the bin they supported and many were even picking up bottles and cans which are not theirs. The cleaner was surprised to see that the tables were clean.

The scheme, "Football Trash" is the best example of how to better serve communities and change behaviour.

Source : 7days