In October last year, as part of the Swachhta Saarthi Fellowship, I conducted two training workshops in the community.  The workshop was designed after analyzing the July month survey that I had conducted in the community to familiarise myself with the most common challenges and areas of improvement at the community and local government level, and individual levels. According to the analysis, common challenges of waste management in my community are the lack of dustbins on the streets, people perceiving waste segregation as a time-consuming practice, lack of proper waste collection by the collectors, space in the areas of residence, lack of awareness about the waste management practices and habit of open dumping of the people. 

At the community and local government level, the areas of improvement are installing dustbins on the streets at the distance of every new lane with proper waste segregation labels for wet and dry waste, installing decentralized waste management in the colonies, offices, and schools, imposing fine system for littering on the streets, and building efficient waste management system. At the individual level, the areas of improvement are producing less waste, recycling the majority of the waste such as kitchen waste, using waste segregation methods, and spreading awareness about waste segregation amongst each other. 

The first training workshop was conducted in school with 45 students of grade 10 which aimed to sensitize the students about waste management and inculcate a sense of belonging towards the environment for carrying out environment-sensitive activities in school and at home. The second training workshop was conducted in an organization named Kadam Lo with their 10 women students specifically mothers. It was aimed to sensitize mothers about the waste management practices to be carried out at home to recycle their kitchen waste. 

The workshop was conducted on active discussion and practical-based learning where the participants learnt the issue of growing waste in the country, waste management scenario at the national, state, and community levels, and solutions to effective waste management. The participants participated actively by participating in discussion-based questions regarding their current methods of managing waste at their homes and brainstormed together on finding effective solutions to waste management through a cloud activity.

During the process of designing and conducting the workshop, I learnt to engage the students actively in the workshop and help them build confidence to participate in the activity through interesting activities, effective communication, and peer-based learning. After half of the session, they started engaging and participating actively. I learnt to answer questions effectively and convince students and women about recycling and managing their waste properly through waste segregation and recycling methods. 

After the workshop more than half of the participants were filled with inspiration to work on their waste management practices and 4 out of 8 women installed waste segregation at their individual levels at their homes. Hence, I believe continuing to leverage environmental awareness and make it reach a wider audience will continue to build environmental consciousness amongst community members and encourage the participation of women and community members in saving the environment.